"They call this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his breath forming puffs of vapor in the cold evening air. "Countless people have vanished here, some say there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is escorting a guest on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.
Reports of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – the grove is named after a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a UFO hovering above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.
Countless ventured inside and failed to return. But no need to fear," he adds, facing his guest with a grin. "Our guided walks have a 100% return rate."
In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, spiritual healers, ufologists and ghost hunters from around the globe, eager to feel the mysterious powers reported to reverberate through the forest.
Despite being one of the world's premier destinations for supernatural fans, the forest is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the Silicon Valley of the region – are encroaching, and real estate firms are pushing for permission to clear the trees to erect housing complexes.
Except for a limited section containing area-specific Mediterranean oak trees, the grove is lacking legal protection, but Marius is confident that the company he helped establish – a local conservation effort – will help to change that, persuading the authorities to acknowledge the forest's value as a tourist attraction.
As twigs and seasonal debris split and rustle beneath their boots, the guide tells some of the traditional stories and alleged paranormal happenings here.
While many of the accounts may be hard to prove, numerous elements visibly present that is definitely bizarre. All around are trees whose bases are warped and gnarled into bizarre configurations.
Different theories have been proposed to account for the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or naturally high radioactivity in the ground explain their unusual development.
But scientific investigations have found no satisfactory evidence.
The expert's excursions allow visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which measures EMF readings.
"We're venturing into the most active section of the forest," he comments. "Discover what's here."
The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a complete ring. The only greenery is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it's naturally occurring, and looks that this strange clearing is organic, not the work of human hands.
Transylvania generally is a location which stirs the imagination, where the line is blurred between truth and myth. In traditional settlements faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, shapeshifting vampires, who rise from their graves to haunt regional populations.
The novelist's well-known fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a medieval building located on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "the vampire's home".
But even legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – seems solid and predictable versus these eerie woods, which appear to be, for factors nuclear, climatic or entirely legendary, a center for human imaginative power.
"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide states, "the division between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."
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