The most haunted forest in the world: Gnarled trees, UFOs and creepy stories from Europe's 'Bermuda Triangle' Tportal 31. Oct 2025. 16:01 Hoia-Baciu is Romania's 'Bermuda Triangle', and in this area trees grow in impossible shapes, time stands still and people have been disappearing without a trace for centuries. What lies hidden in the heart of Transylvania when night falls? While most tourists seek out Dracula's estates, locals talk about a far creepier place — Hoia-Baciu forest , he writes Tportal . Transylvania is famous for its vampire legends, and this forest hides mysteries that surpass anything known. Bram Stoker could imagine. There are no romanticized vampires there – just an inexplicable reality that violates natural laws and challenges common sense, as The Guardian writes. TEXT CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT "They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania. So many people have disappeared here that some say it's a portal to another dimension," says the tour guide. Marius Lazin. He leads night walks through what is often described as the most haunted forest in the world : an area called Hoia-Baciu on the outskirts of the Romanian city Cluj-Napoca. He's been coming there three nights a week for 12 years, but he's also a little uneasy as he shines his spotlight on the curved wall made of elm and beech, which looks so dense it could be the edge of the known world. Historical legends and disappearances Lazin He points his flashlight at a pair of slender beech trees, eerie in their symmetry, their branches intertwined in arches – whether they are portals or stargates, you might speculate if you have a vivid imagination. 'Many have entered here and never come out. But don't worry, our trips have a 100 percent return rate,' he added. TEXT CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT Reports of strange happenings there date back centuries: the forest is named after a local shepherd who is said to have disappeared long ago with 200 sheep. But the area gained international attention in 1968, when a military technician Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a UFO hovering over a circular clearing in the center of the forest. In the coming decades Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from around the world, curious to experience the strange energies said to resonate through the forest. Yet it may be one of the world's major pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, but it is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern technology hub of more than 400.000 people, described as the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe – are encroaching on the forest, and permits are increasingly being sought to cut down trees to build apartment blocks. Paranormal phenomena and tourist experiences The guide recounts some folk tales and alleged paranormal events: one of the stories describes a five-year-old girl who disappeared during a family picnic, only to reappear five years later with no memory of what happened to her, not having aged a day and her clothes free of dirt. TEXT CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT More common reports describe cell phones and cameras inexplicably turning off upon entering the forest. Others have reported experiencing strange skin rashes, hearing whispers through the trees, or feeling hands grabbing or pushing them, even when they are sure they are alone.… Lazin also showed famous pictures of UFOs that catapulted through the forest. Hoia-Baciu to international attention in the 1960s. Grainy and monochrome, they appear to show a button-shaped flying saucer hovering above the trees. He showed dozens of other photos on his iPod taken in the years before and after, of similar saucer-like objects, glowing balls, or ghosts. Enigmatic photographs of this nature have been the subject of paranormal research for over a century, but they are not of much use as evidence, but it is worth noting that Barnea He couldn't profit from publishing his photographs – on the contrary, he lost his job in the army because the communist government didn't look favorably on anything supernatural. 'Many of the old researchers who were in the forest ended up in a psychiatric ward. Did the communist regime put them there? Or did something really happen to them, here in the forest,' Lazin wondered. TEXT CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT Many of the stories may be unverifiable, but the forest is indeed very strange. All around are trees whose trunks are tilted and twisted into the most unusual, fairy-tale shapes. Some bulge outward, their tops disappearing into the black night, resembling giant meat hooks hanging from the sky. Others descend like melted candles or are tilted in strange, spiral patterns, which ultimately results in with a creepy atmosphere . Various suggestions have been made to explain the deformed trees: that hurricane winds may have tilted them when they were young, or that naturally high levels of radiation in the soil caused their strange growth. But scientific research has not found satisfactory evidence for this Lazin's tours allow visitors to participate in a bit of their own scientific research. In a clearing among the trees, where Barnea took his famous UFO photos, the guide hands tourists an EMF meter for 'ghost hunting,' and it measures electromagnetic fields. The only greenery is short grass – it is clear that it has not been mowed and it seems that this strange clearing is natural, not the work of human hands. Transylvania — the land of imagination However, the EMF meter did not record any specific activity. Transylvania (literally 'the place beyond the forest') generally stirs the imagination, with a blurred line between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities, belief in ghost ('screamers') – undead, blood-sucking shapeshifters who rise from their graves and terrorize local communities. Stoker's famous vampire, Count Dracula, forever associated with Transylvania, Bran Castle – perched on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathians, about a four-hour drive south of the Hoia-Baciu Forest – is eagerly advertised as ‘Dracula’s Castle’. Although it bears little resemblance to the shadowy ruin described as his abode and there is no evidence that it inspired Stoker, it is still a major attraction for fans of all things Gothic, especially around Halloween, when the castle hosts costume parties. ‘In the Hoia-Baciu Forest, the line between reality and fantasy is very thin,’ concludes guide Lazin, describing the eerie site that has garnered much attention. Source: https://www.portal.hr/en/novosti/trisedma/101125-najukletija-suma-na-svijetu-izobliceno-drvece-nlo-i-i-jezive-price-iz-europskog-bermudskog-trokuta