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"Locals dub this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a tour guide, the air from his lungs forming wisps of condensation in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous individuals have gone missing here, it's thought it's a portal to a parallel world." This expert is guiding a traveler on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of old-growth local woods on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here go back centuries – the grove is named after a local shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he reported as a flying saucer hovering above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But don't worry," he states, addressing the visitor with a smirk. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted meditation experts, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from worldwide, interested in encountering the unusual forces reported to reverberate through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being one of the world's premier destinations for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are pushing for authorization to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Barring a small area home to regionally uncommon oak varieties, the grove is lacking legal protection, but Marius hopes that the organization he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, persuading the government officials to appreciate the forest's value as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their footwear, the guide tells various traditional stories and claimed ghostly incidents here.

• A popular tale recounts a five-year-old girl disappearing during a family picnic, later to return half a decade later with complete amnesia of her experience, showing no signs of aging a moment, her attire shy of the tiniest bit of dust.
• More common reports describe cellphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Some people claim noticing unusual marks on their arms, perceiving disembodied whispers through the forest, or sense palms pushing them, even when sure they are alone.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the tales may be impossible to confirm, there are many things clearly observable that is undeniably strange. All around are trees whose bases are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations.

Different theories have been proposed to account for the abnormal growth: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or naturally high radiation levels in the earth account for their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's tours enable visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the woods where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which detects energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most active part of the forest," he says. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it's not maintained, and looks that this strange clearing is wild, not the creation of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a place which stirs the imagination, where the division is indistinct between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing vampires, who rise from their graves to terrorise regional populations.

The novelist's renowned character Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – an ancient structure situated on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – appears real and understandable compared to these eerie woods, which seem to be, for reasons related to radiation, atmospheric or simply folkloric, a nexus for creative energy.

"Within this forest," Marius comments, "the division between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."