Inside The World's Scariest Forest
I visit a haunted forest in Transylvania and discover something new about myself
I am scared of lots of things. I am terrified of heights, depths, confined spaces, of walking by myself in dark streets, of bears, of wolves, of drowning, of the general concept of evil and the more personal and terrifying prospect of going mad.
In fairness, these are quite rational fears, fears that have to do with me wanting to 1. stay alive and 2. be together enough to be able to appreciate my life. But timid and fearful as I am, I am also extremely stubborn and dislike the idea of anything holding me back or preventing me from experiencing the world in all its monstrous terrifying glory.
I regularly make myself do things that scare me witless. I went in a hot air balloon in Australia for example - one of the worst hours I have ever spent in my life. I explored a series of underground caves in Southern China, horrible enough in itself, before the guide announced that we were lost and he had no idea how to get out - also not one of my favourite days. So why, why am I considering going into a haunted forest in Romania, where there may well be wolves and bears, I might get lost, most locals refuse to enter it, and there are multiple stories about people going into the forest sane, then leaving it entirely deranged? I want to see what all the fuss is about. I am a scaredy-cat, but I am not a coward.
Not far from the truly delightful Transylvanian town of Cluj-Napoca is the beautiful, ancient Hoia-Baciu forest. It has a long and interesting history: there is evidence of prehistoric settlers living in this forest, as well as more recently, visitors from outer space.
In 1968, a man named Emil Barnea took photographs of a huge silver disc hovering over the forest. These photographs were published in Romanian newspapers and their appeareance started speculation about what the disc could be. It looked like a classic movie UFO - although at the time it was suggested by the communist government that it might be a weather balloon.
The area directly under where the UFO was photographed is a peculiar large circular space known as “The Clearing” (which would make an excellent title for a horror film). One Tuesday lunchtime in early October, I find myself standing in this clearing in the company of Marius, one of the founders of the Hoia-Baciu project - a business that organises day and night tours to this unusual forest. His clients range from team-building groups, to energy healers, shamans, psychics, paranormal investigators and then nosey ghoulish people like me.
“I want you to walk around the clearing and tell me if you feel anything” says Marius, stepping away from me and standing under the shadow of a tree. It’s midday - but a skein of mist spans the huge diameter of the clearing and is faintly illuminated by the sun’s weak autumnal rays. “I want you to take pictures as well. Sometimes things come out in pictures that you don’t see with the naked eye”
It’s taken us a while to get to The Clearing. We have walked through a mile or so of thick forest populated with strange-looking trees - some with twisted trunks, some entwined with their neighbours, and others forming a portal with a rogue down-turned branch. It’s mushroom season, so the air is perfumed with earthy smoky scents that rise up as we tramp over the leafy forest floor. Along the way, Marius has given me the same instructions - to take lots of photographs and to be alert to strange sensations, and to let him know if I see, or hear anything unusual. He is careful not to influence me; he doesn’t tell me about experiences other people have had in the forest.
I walk slowly around The Clearing in both directions. I stand right in the middle, right under the flight path of the UFO and turn around. I feel what I have felt every moment since I entered the forest - a strong sense of peace and positivity. The air is crisp and clean. There is a delightful dappled light brightening every surface it touches.
I have always found forests to be comforting and since my second question to Marius after meeting up, was to confirm an absence of wolves and bears, I now feel very safe.
Marius hands me an iPad and directs me to scroll through a selection of vintage shots. There are ghostly figures, a hunched demon, balls of ectoplasm and streaks of light. I spot a huge group of yogis practising together in one photograph, as well as shots of scientists in old-fashioned dress. He tells me about drones crashing and electronic equipment either malfunctioning or ceasing to work completely.
“Many people who come to The Clearing sense a feminine presence here” he says. “Most people feel it is somewhere between neutral and benevolent. A couple of people have said that they feel a male, evil spirit”. He shows me where this spirit is believed to live and even with this knowledge and my imagination - I feel absolutely nothing. “I’m not a sceptic,” I say, slightly defensively. “I mean, I don’t want to see a ghost or feel anything unpleasant, that is for sure, but I genuinely feel that this forest is well disposed towards me - I don’t sense any evil presence.”
I do hear the rhythmic tap of a woodpecker and some creaks from dying branches. I enjoy spotting the weird tree formations, the trunks twisted like barley sugar; the “portal trees” shaped like archways. I walk through a portal tree to see if it makes me feel any different - it doesn’t.
Marius tells me that the guest he took on a tour the day before had suddenly experienced a splitting headache in a certain part of the forest. He adds that others have reported suffering from nausea, anxiety, pain and changes in temperature and asks me if I have had any strange symptoms.
If anything, I feel extremely well in the forest - the fresh air is clearing my head after a fairly average night’s sleep and my mood is lifted by listening to Marius, who is an excellent story-teller. He asks me what I think about coinicidences and I trot out the usual line: “It’s God’s way of showing He has a sense of humour” and then I say “Of course there will be coincidences, sometimes we want to read something into them, sometimes it will just be an accident, I’m not really sure”. He tells me a few stories involving coincidences in the forest, before showing me a tree that looks like an ugly face.
We walk back towards the car and the conversation turns, as I always hoped it would, towards vampires. Marius tells me about Strigoi, spirits of the dead stuck in this world, unable to move into the next. He explains that Strigoi are believed to cause illness in humans and animals - illnesses that can only be cured by either disinterring a body whose spirit is causing trouble and driving a wooden stake through its heart, or, more disgustingly, removing the heart, burning it, then giving the heart ash, mixed with liquid, to anyone suffering to drink. There is a highly disturbing story from as recently as 2004 , where a woman drank the ashes of her uncle’s incinerated heart.
At this point, Marius does an elegant name drop: “Dacre Stoker” - the great grand nephew of my hero, author of “Dracula,” Bram Stoker. Like a London cabbie boasting about a passenger, Marius explains that he took Dacre Stoker out to the forest for a tour. He only realised the family connection to the area when the local papers published stories about Dacre Stoker’s visit the following day. “Did you know Bram Stoker never came to Romania?” Marius says to me “He got all his information from guide books." He explains that Bram Stoker did feature Cluj in the book. Stoker’s charatcer, Jonathan Harker, stays one night there. “In fact, in the novel, he stayed at the hotel you are at, the Hotel Transylvania”
For the first time on this ghostly tour, I feel the hairs stand up on my arms and my skin suddenly becomes cold. “What do you mean he stayed at my hotel?” I say “It can’t be old enough, can it?”
I pull out my phone and look it up. The Hotel Transylvania was formerly known as The Queen of England”, which in itself is a slightly odd coincidence. It is the oldest hotel in Cluj and an inn is believed to have been on that site since the Middle Ages. Bram Stoker’s character Jonathan Harker travels to Klausenberg (the old name for Cluj) and spends the night in a hotel called “The Royal”, which would tally with the regal name of my hotel at that time.
As I travel a lot, I book hotels through an app - I never go directly to the hotel website. All I need is to be able to cancel at the last minute (as my lifestyle is highly erratic), to have a kettle in my room as I drink an obscene amount of tea when I am writing, and a 24-hour front desk as I tend to arrive and leave at strange hours.
This hotel had all these necessities, and the convenience of being right next to the airport bus stop - something I appreciate when I need to get a lot done in a short time. I had no idea about the hotel’s history and I find it delightfully creepy. “I think I do believe in coincidences after all” I say slowly and Marius grins at me.
