Mysterious Romania (IV) Bermuda Triangle's Sibling

Hoia-Baciu forest a Romanian Bermuda Triangle?

I will continue my introducing to you places surrounded by mystery, legends and controversy in Romania.

Hoia-Baciu forest is to be found on the same list with other strange places of the world like: Mojave Desert, La Spezia-Arenzano in Italy, Hessdalen Valley in Norway or Kailasa Mountain in Tibet. Prestigious publications such as Travel & Leisure magazine or BBC have included the forest here among the most interesting forest haunted areas on the planet.  Close to Cluj town, just a three kilometers trip, you will enter the Hoia-Baciu forest. A mysterious and  wonderful place, where  you can’t say  the difference between reality and paranormal. In fact, nobody really knows if this is a haunted location, or a UFO location. The forest was named after a shepherd that disappeared in the area with two hundred sheep.
By the way, do you know what does the name mean? Of course you can't know. Hoia is in fact a regional pronouncing of the name Horia. Baciu means in dialect of the area shepherd. So the name  Hoia-Baciu means Shepherd Horia. The one who disappeared with his sheep in the forest.
 What witnesses say
 What strikes tourists at first is the odd shape of the trees. You’ll find nowhere else in the world so many crooked, unnaturally bent trees. There are places where six to eight trees come out from the same root. Their crowns, instead of raising to the sky, are bent as if in silent prayer, to the ground. 

People have always been fascinated by this place. In old times, peasants said they knew about the strange powers of the forest and would avoid  going there. They believed that those who visited the site would never return. They even avoided mentioning the forest as they thought it was cursed,a dwelling place of the Devil himself. It is believed that the souls of the peasants murdered here, their ghosts, are trapped within the woods.
Even nowadays, those who ventured into the forest returned deeply shaken and complained of physical harm, including rashes, nausea, vomiting, migraines, burns, scratches, anxiety, and other unusual bodily sensations, as well as a feeling of being watched. Scientists would describe these as the symptoms of radiation poisoning. But, centuries back, in the fourteen hundreds, people were reporting those same symptoms, so “secret government bases"are ruled out. There were others who entered the forest and suddenly remembered all of their past experiences, but then forgot the memories after leaving the area.

 First to unravel the mystery

The biologist Alexandru Sift started researching the forest in the fifties and lifted a tiny corner of the mystery veil. Sift performed many scientific trips into the forest and, soon, he became aware of “shadows” watching him from behind the crooked trees. His investigations were continued in the seventies by several research teams or even by solitary researchers. 

In 1968 international press agencies  sent home a famous photograph of a saucer-like object over the Hoia-Baciu Forest. The photo was captured by a military technician named Emil Barnea.  International experts, over the years, have classified it as “the clearest images of a UFO photographed in Romania and undoubtedly one of the best images of any UFO photographed ever in the world. ” It seems this is the moment the international career of the forest began. The area was a hotbed for UFO sighting and unexplained lights. There are many rumors and reports about contact with entities outside our known world, occurring here every year.
Science logic annihilated

Research institutes from Europe and USA received reports on Hoia-Baciu forest that has become a living legend today. For half a century, odd events that blow to pieces the limit and logic of science have been noticed here;the geometric shapes, flying nocturnal or diurnal light colored humanoid appearances, strange nebula forms, materialization and dematerialization, twisting trees in intervals of tens of seconds, mobile radioactive fields and many other things that defy understanding won the forest the name of Romanian Bermuda Triangle. Other specific occurrences include passive wild animals. Even the locals will tell you that wolves living here are very friendly. Due to the amazing variety of the apparitions happening in the forest it is considered the world „capital”of paranormal.  Visitors in the forest have witnessed strange events, the most common phenomenon includes seeing mysterious orb-like lights, female voices, giggling, apparitions, and cases of people being scratched. Specialists from around the world are fascinated by the forest. They have managed to capture bizarre material structures on film, including  ghastly faces and  ghostly apparitions.

Conclusion
Paranormal phenomena happening in Hoia-Baciu - the mobile radioactive fields and many other things that defy understanding, the complexity, novelty and frequency with which they occur, make this area a unique space, the most active and most researched by specialists worldwide. Famous parapsychologists in the world consider Hoia-Baciu forest as the most „active” point on the earth. Due to the force and  amazing variety of the apparitions happening in the forest it is considered the world „capital”of paranormal. 

The atmosphere in Hoia-Baciu is similar to the one in  my paranormal romance Shadows of the Past.  The cursed forest where Anne and Neil get lost and make a gruesome discovery. You may find the book here:
Wildchildpublishing
Amazon