Hoia Baciu Forest, Romania

Hoia Baciu Forest located just outside Cluj, Napoca, Romania’s second largest City in the depths of Transylvania. The forest has a spooky reputation for intense paranormal activity and strange unexplained events.

Named after a shepherd who went missing in the forest with a flock of 200 sheep, Hoia Baciu came to international attention in 1968 when Emil Barnea, a military technician, photographed what he claimed was a UFO hovering over The Clearing.

The Clearing
A patch of land where inexplicably, there are no trees or vegetation, nothing grows there or ever has done.

At one point scientists carried out numerous tests on the soil, in search of some sort of chemical composition that might inhibit growth, nothing was found, in fact it was deemed no different to the lush and fertile ground elsewhere in the forest.

The forest covers an area of ​​over 250 hectares and is often referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of this part of the world.

Some people believe that the forest is a gateway to another dimension. Within the dark interior of Hoia-Baciu Forest people have been known to disappear, strange lights have been seen and disembodied voices heard.

There are several stories of people entering the forest and experiencing rashes, nausea, feelings of anxiety and missing time. Some people have been known to be missing for quite some time with no recollection of how they had spent that time.

One such story focuses on a 5-year-old girl who wandered into the woods and got lost. She emerged from the forest 5 years later wearing the same untarnished clothes that she wore on the day she disappeared. She hadn't aged a day but had no memory of what had happened during that interval of time.

Many reports have included ghost sightings, UFOs, unexplained apparitions, faces appearing in photographs that were not visible with the naked eye.

With its crooked trees, whispering branches and sinister trails leading to even stranger tree formations this is definitely not a tour for the faint-hearted.