Romania's Haunted Hoia-Baciu Forest: UFO and Other Mysteries

The Hoia-Baciu Forest is located near Cluj-Napoca, in Romania and is generally considered to be the worlds most haunted forest as well as locally being referred to as the countries Bermuda Triangle.
Hoia-Baciu has a huge reputation for paranormal activity, and reports have included, myths and legends, ghost stories, apparitions, faces identified in photographs that were not visible with the naked eye, and, in the 1970s, UFO sightings. Visitors to the forest often report feelings of intense anxiety and the feeling of being constantly watched, and the local vegetation is often rather bizarre (strangely shaped trees, charring on tree stumps and branches).

The forest was named after a shepherd that disappeared in the area with two hundred sheep. Some of the people who live near the forest are afraid to enter, believing that those who go in will never return. Many of the locals who have gone into the forest complain of physical harm, including rashes, nausea, vomiting, migraines, burns, scratches, anxiety, and other unusual bodily sensations.

Strangely shaped trees inside Hoia-Baciu forest

This dense forest first gained notoriety in the late 1960s when biologist Alexandru Sift snapped several amazing photos of flying disc-shaped objects in the skies above the forest canopy. People who enter the forest inexplicably get rashes or begin to feel very light-headed and become ill. Also electronic devices are known to inexplicably malfunction in the area. Some paranormal investigators associate these unknown malfunctioning with supernatural activity.

On August 18, 1968, a military technician named Emil Barnea captured a famous photograph of a saucer-like object over the Hoia-Baciu Forest. Some believe that the forest is the gateway to another dimension. Several stories are often told that exhibit people entering the forest and experiencing missing time with no recollection of how they spent that time. One such story focuses on a 5-year-old girl who wonders into the forest and gets lost. She re-emerges from the forest 5 years older still wearing the untarnished clothes that she wore on the day she disappeared with no memory of where she had been.

The area is also believed to still be haunted by the spirits of Romanian peasants who were murdered there. Within the dark interior, people have been known to disappear, strange lights have been seen, the wind seems to speak, and visions of these tormented spirits are observed by terrified travelers. Pairs of green eyes and a black fog have been observed here and many people report a feeling of being watched as they travel near the forest’s edge.

Light anomalies in Hoia Baciu

Locals also believe that there is a hub for this paranormal activity— a circular plateau deep in the forest which is devoid of trees and which is thought to be the “home” of these ghosts. Photos taken here have been developed to reveal hovering shapes and outlines of human forms.

This paranormal activity seems to be focused in an inexplicable clearing in the forest that is a vegetation dead zone. It is nearly a perfect circle in the woods where nothing will grow. Soil samples have been taken from the site and analyzed but results show that there is nothing in the soil that should prevent the growth of plant life.

By Paul Middleton, source: Ghosts, the paranormal, myths and legends