The Hoia-Baciu Forest
Is it possible that the most paranormal forest is located in Transylvania? Known as the Bermuda Triangle of Romania, the Hoia Baciu forest is located near Cluj-Napoca.
In addition to having skeletal, winding, eerie trees, the forest is known for a variety of paranormal phenomena, such as missing people, UFO activity, hauntings, shadow people, poltergeist activity, and more. It also has a dead zone where electronic equipment is known to malfunction.
What could be causing this forest to be so supernatural? Listen Now.
Would you take a stroll through a forest straight out of a nightmarish fairy tale?
What if a missing person of 5 years reappeared as if nothing had happened?
Is the most paranormal forest located in Transylvania?
What Is Up, Bizarros?! This week we dive into a strange forest, the Hoia Baciu Forest.
Where Is The Hoia Baciu Forest?
Before we get into the spooky and eeriness of this forest, let’s talk for a moment about where it is.
Hoia-Baciu Forest is west of the city of Cluj-Napoca in the Transylvania region of Romania.
Surprisingly, it isn’t in a super remote area; in fact, it is kind of a tourist attraction and popular among researchers – especially due to the strange phenomena that take place here.
Of course, when you think of Transylvania, you think of Dracula and all that, too. But the Hoia-Baciu Forest gets its fair share of tourism.
In terms of size, the Hoia-Baciu Forest is just a square mile in area. However, everything it likes in size it makes up for in strangeness.
Just like Tyler.
Anyway, more about this supernatural forest.
The Hoia Forest has so many different variations of paranormal that it is known as the “Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania.”
Also, and we’ll get to it shortly, but there is a lot of stuff that apparently goes down in this forest. It’s not just ghosts or just a cryptid, as if that wouldn’t be enough.
What Is The Forest Known For?
Aside from the strange events that occur in the forest, it has very odd trees and vegetation.
The trees look warped and like you were dropped in a fantasy novel.
They don’t grow straight up, but rather they are very twisty and bent, sort of like giving you the sensation that they are reaching out to grab you.
It gives the Hoia forest a very menacing and otherworldly feeling. Some of the tree trunks have burn marks, and people claim to see faces in the tree bark, almost in a twisted, screaming fashion.
Apparently, all of the trees curve in a clockwise direction, too.
There is also an area considered a “dead zone” In this area, nothing is able to grow.
A lot of people attribute this patch of area to the center of where the paranormal aspect of the forest comes from.
Folks say when you step into the dead zone, you are surrounded entirely by the crooked forest since there are no trees in that patch, sort of like a small field in the middle of the forest.
It gives you kind of a detached feeling.
This clearing is one of the more famous aspects of the forest, and scientists have tested the soil to discover why nothing grows there but haven’t reached a conclusion.
So, now that we have a feel for what the forest looks like, the twisty trees, the bizarre dead zone – let’s talk a little bit about what it is known for.
Many people claim that when you walk into this forest, you get this rush of uneasiness. Sure, it looks strange, like a dark fairytale, but many folks claim that suddenly get the feeling that they are being watched.
Like they are in an area, they shouldn’t be or don’t fit in, almost like trespassing.
Like eyes, humans or other creatures are observing your every move. Shadow figures or things moving in your peripheral view are common in the Hoia-Baciu Forest.
It triggers your flight or fight senses.
Even from the first steps into the forest, you can experience nausea, anxiety, vomiting, severe headaches, scratches, and even skin burns.
People believe it to be under a powerful curse and even a place where the Devil wanders free
There are magnetic anomalies and electromagnetic field fluctuations.
Electronic devices are prone to malfunction here, and compasses have the tendency to go berserk as soon as the forest is entered.
And some people believe the forest is home to a number of creatures – from ghosts and demons to aliens.
We’ll break down these anomalies and get to encounters and stories surrounding the forest, but first, there are a couple of urban legends that have permeated the forest.
Urban Legends Of The Forest
One urban legend tells of a five-year-old girl who went into the forest.
The strangeness of this legend isn’t that she went missing, that’s just tragic, but she actually re-emerged from the forest 5 years later.
Here is the weird part – it looked as if not a single day had passed.
She was wearing the same exact clothes, which appeared to be in pristine condition, she was the same age, and she had no memory of what had happened inside the forest.
A second urban legend tells of a shepherd who went missing in the forest with a flock of 200 sheep. The shepherd and her whole group of sheep were never seen again, despite an extensive search.
Apparently, this urban legend is the namesake of the forest.
Baci is the Romanian word for “sheep herder,” and the forest gained notoriety in local folklore as a place where you went missing.
A place that many folks would not return from.
A third urban legend is the belief that the forest is the lair of the ghosts of peasants who had been violently murdered.
Anyone who enters the Hoia forest who has murderous thoughts or ill intentions, the forest will punish them and show them for what they really are before taking their life.
This kind of paints the forest in more of a cursed light rather than merely haunted.
Why would it be cursed?
Apparently, there is evidence of a settlement there, dating all the way back to the Neolithic period.
Evidence suggests that people originally settled there in 6500 BC, making it the oldest settlement in all of Romania.
So, with that said – let’s move on to some of the anomalies that are said to occur in the Hoia Baiciu Forest.
Paranormal Activity That Happens In The Hoia Baciu Forest
How it impacts people
Just to reiterate, because this is an anomaly, even if it’s an internal thing – likely caused by external factors, we want to discuss what people in the forest feel again.
It’s important to emphasize what type of sensations people have.
Visitors of the forest are known to experience:
Headaches
Feelings of disorientation
Nausea
Dizziness
A loss of a sense of time
Flight or fight responses
See things in the corner of their eyes
A feeling of being watched
Scratches and bruises
Auditorial and visual hallucinations
Powerful memories from their past
Astral projections
Intense mood swings
Unexplainable physical sensations that would otherwise be attributed to gusts of wind when there is none or extreme temperature change
Nose bleeds
Rashes
Burns
So, now let’s get into more of the anomalies.
Hauntings
A wide variety of apparitions are spotted through in the forest, and it isn’t uncommon for visitors to hear laughter and hushed voices coming from seemingly no where or no one.
Faces are known to suddenly flash into existence in front of startled visitors, in addition to appearing in photographs upon being developed when nothing out of the ordinary was seen when the pictures were taken.
Disfigured, distorted faces have also been known to materialize out of the crooked trees themselves as if they were growing or blooming from the branches and trunks.
For the folks specifically looking for paranormal evidence, EVP activity has also been reported in Hoia Forest, with eerie unidentified voices emanating from the ether over radios or even cellphones.
One of the most common forms of ghostly activity reported is the presence of strange, flickering orbs that seem to have no discernible origin.
These mysterious lights have been studied by paranormal investigators using a range of scientific equipment, such as infrared cameras and thermal detectors.
It was discovered that these orbs do not seem to produce any heat, as thermal imaging equipment has thus far failed to turn up any heat signatures for them.
They also seem to be completely random in their activity, with no real rhyme or reason as to when they will appear or when they are most active.
In addition, some people have also claimed to hear the sounds of deer or horse hooves, even when there were none to be seen.
Sometimes people see glowing green eyes staring at them from a distance.
Here is a quote from imperial Transylvania about a specific encounter:
“Drawn by the stories about the forest, Alexander Sift, a biologist, started researching the strange occurrences in the 1950s.
He reported feeling constantly accompanied and watched by some presences that he called ‘shadows.’
These shadows would sometimes take the shape of a couple, who would disappear into thin air as soon as they caught sight of him.
He somehow managed to catch the man on camera right after the woman had disappeared, just as the man was disappearing himself.
The photograph depicts the peculiar being with a stub for an arm and with parts of its body becoming translucent: a phenomenon referred to as ‘dematerialization.’
Sadly, there are not many pieces of evidence, as the better part of the scholar’s collection was stolen and destroyed shortly after he passed away.
Psychology Professor, Adrian Patrut has become one of the most notable believers of Sift’s endeavor.
His repertoire includes images of immaterial shapes, beams of light, and spherical objects, none of which can be logically accounted for.
However, it is said that whatever events may occur are influenced by the person who enters the forest. So, if you are a skeptic, you are likely to get out of the forest unscathed.”
Poltergeist Activity
Here is a quote from Mysterious Universe:
“Poltergeist activity is also allegedly rampant in the forest, with belongings such as cameras or bags being violently flung into the underbrush by unseen forces, as well as people being aggressively pushed around or thrown down to the ground.
One such occurrence was captured on an episode of the TV show “Destination Truth,” when one of the crew was suddenly and violently attacked by an invisible aggressor.
According to the crew, the man in question, Evan, was sitting in a clearing when there was a sudden flash of light, and he was thrown across the clearing to the other side.
The somewhat disoriented Evan then found that he had inexplicable scratches all up and down his arms, despite the fact that he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
He later reported that shortly before the incident, he had heard strange female voices behind him before being blown across the clearing as if by a strong wind.
The entire episode was captured on film and remains unexplained. The Destination Truth team was also able to capture the mysterious orbs of light on film during their investigation.”
UFOs
Let’s just add more paranormal phenomena to this forest.
In addition to hauntings, potentially cursed or poltergeist activity, the forest is also known for UFO activity.
In August of 1968, a military technician named Emil Barnea took pictures of something strange in the sky.
Here is a quote from Tour in Romania-
“It was a sunny August afternoon, and his girlfriend told him that she saw something weird. He walked over to where she was standing, and he saw it, too: a shining silver disk in the sky.
Luckily, he had his camera with him, and before the object bolted away, he was able to capture four photos.
The four of them only saw the UFO for about two minutes, but Barnea then developed his film, and his pictures live on.
Barnea’s photos were published in local papers, and many people were very skeptical. Some said it was probably a couple of weather balloons shot in odd circumstances or odd lighting.
Investigators looked into weather balloons, blimps, or anything else that might have been in the sky in that area on that day, but nothing could be found to explain the photos.
The photo negatives were also examined to see if Barnea had altered the images, but no evidence of tampering could be found.”
This actually ended up costing Barnea his career, as paranormal beliefs weren’t viewed too highly. So, he had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by coming forward with his UFO claims and images.
Finally, we have a more recent UFO sighting.
Here is a quote from UFO Sightings Hotspot
“the most recent high profile UFO sighting to come from Hoia Forest occurred in 2002 when two residents on the top floor of an apartment complex in the adjacent city of Cluj managed to capture 27 seconds of footage of a bright, cigar-shaped object around 50 meters in length hovering over the forest.
The UFO reportedly slowly made its way across the sky before disappearing into thick cloud cover.
UFO activity in the forest is so intense that alien abduction is often offered as a possible reason for the many missing persons and cases of lost time reported from the area.”
Theories About The Dark Forest
So, of course, the forest could be haunted, right? Haunted or cursed. We’ll leave that as sort of a baseline. But I have two strange theories and one more grounded, so to speak, theory.
Then we’ll get into some encounters inside the forest.
Theory 1 – UFO Base
Based on some of the strangeness with lights and reported UFO activity, some people believe that the UFO base is housed in the forest. This could also be why people get strange feelings of being watched.
Perhaps there is some type of cloaking system being used, or it’s underground.
Theory 2 – A Different Dimension
The second theory points to the idea that the Hoia Forest is a portal to a different dimension.
Of course, this would explain all of the very strange symptoms people experience – such as nausea and anxiety, along with the missing people.
If you want to tie theories 1 and 2 together, maybe it is a portal that brought the aliens or other entities to the forest.
Theory 3 – Sound Waves
Here is a quote from Mysterious Universe:
“Perhaps the forest is a source of some sort of ultra-low frequency sound waves, which are basically sounds that are inaudible to the human ear yet can create some profound physical effects from their vibrations nonetheless.
These sound waves have been known to create deep feelings of unease and disorientation in people who experience them, which are similar to the sensations reported within Hoia-Baciu Forest.
Ultra low-frequency soundwaves could also potentially be the root cause of the physical discomfort associated with the forest, such as headaches, nose bleeds, and nausea, and such sound waves can also possibly produce profound audio and visual hallucinations.
Ultra-low frequency infrasound is actually produced in nature all of the time, most notably in relation to natural phenomena such as thunder, earthquakes, and erupting volcanoes.”
Encounters In The Hoia Forest
Encounter #1
This particular story happened during summer in the Hoia Baciu Forest.
Seeing as I’d like to keep my name anonymous, as well as my friend’s, I will be referring to myself as S and my friend as T.
Ever since I had access to the internet, I’ve always been fascinated with the supernatural, the horrific, and the insane, I don’t know why; I guess it’s just like what adrenaline junkies get when they do something particularly dumb and exciting.
Anyway, I moved to Romania a good two and a half years ago, moving in with my girlfriend; after a few weeks, I was introduced to T, a botanist who works in Romania, documenting plants and what not.
We both liked beer a lot and during one of our particular beer meetings, we started talking about spooky stuff he had experienced in the woods.
Now T is a true skeptic; he doesn’t believe in anything that seems just slightly out of the ordinary; he thinks UFOs and Vampires and Skinwalkers are all just bad trips done by hippies in the woods.
Either way, we start talking about Hoia Baciu, a forest near a city called Cluj, and, although having never been there himself, T said some of his fellow botanists have experienced pretty messed up things in the forest. Some had scratches, others passed out, and some heard voices and saw UFOs; it was mostly mixed encounters.
Fast forward a year. I had just recently quit a job that had put a lot of strain on my personal life and as a result, my relationship with my girlfriend.
So, after applying for a new job, I decided I’d use the free time to de-stress, meaning play lots of games, get drunk, and go camping with T.
T had a particular job to do in Cluj, and I gladly tagged along and spent my time just exploring the city.
After a little search on Google, I discovered that a supposedly haunted forest was nearby, Hoia Baciu.
It took a while, but I eventually convinced T to come with me on my curious exploration of the forest, and in the end, we went.
T was busy and needed to go to a meeting a couple of days from then, meaning T and I could only spend a night in the forest; it made me a little sad, but it was better than nothing, so we grabbed a taxi and drove out to the forest.
The walk into the forest was relatively uneventful, long only because T had to stop and document some plants on the way, while I just stood around and smoked cigarettes, all the while nagging to myself that my girlfriend didn’t allow me to bring along her camera, which she was very attached to.
Night finally came, and the two of us set up in the forest, surrounded by trees, while the ground was covered in a blanket of brown, dead leaves.
T and I had only brought one two-man tent, some food, some booze, a foldable e-tool, and my Kalashnikov bayonet, a birthday present I received on my last birthday.
We set up the tent in no time, had some grub, and spent the evening just sitting around talking, drinking beers, and generally being boys.
We had made a tiny fire, and nothing happened as the evening stretched on; we got more drunk, and finally, around 1 AM, T decided to hit the sack, and I agreed.
As we packed up our stuff and were about to put out the fire, we both heard the sound of a branch snapping in the distance, some distance behind our tent, followed by what sounded like a very quick, yet loud, yelp.
It was high-pitched and echoed through the trees.
T and I stood still, listening intently to the noise in the distance, 1 minute turned to 5, and 5 to 10. I was the first one to begin packing up again, but I was quickly stopped when T waved his hand violently and whispered for me to stop and listen. It must’ve been sleep taking over because I didn’t hear anything at first, but slowly I started picking up the noise of movement in the woods.
It started behind me and moved to my right, then to my front to be behind T, and then to my left. Something was circling us.
I looked at T, and he looked right back at me. Now, I’m going to go ahead and say that T is a guy who doesn’t scare easily, almost never, in fact, but the look of pure terror in his eyes instantly took its hold on me, and I felt my heart push up into my throat.
Moments of silence passed, and slowly I’d wave him towards the fire; we stood on opposite sides of it and leaned over cautiously. “You hear it, right?” I asked, and T just nodded slowly.
“Do you think someone is taking the piss?” I asked cautiously, and T shook his head slowly. “Wolf?”
T shook his head. “Bear?”
He shook his head again. At this point, I will admit that I got a little annoyed, I thought it was definitely some jerks out in the woods trying to scare us, and I didn’t want any of it.
I knelt down, pulled out my bayonet, and turned around to shout into the woods while brandishing my weapon when suddenly a flurry of movement came from behind T.
We instantly whipped around just in time to see leaves being kicked up and the figure of something strange disappearing into the bushes again.
I didn’t get a clear look, but T instantly turned around and looked behind me, even more fear in his eyes, so much so I could see tears welling in them.
“S, shovel. Give it here.” T whispered cautiously. “Keep looking behind me, I’ll keep looking behind you.” I nodded, and knelt down carefully, my eyes stayed leveled and looked into the darkness of the forest behind T, and slowly the shovel was handed to him, which he unfolded and kept at the ready.
Another sudden yelp came from the woods; this time, it was much closer; I swore it was within a 10-meter radius of us.
The noise was much easier to identify this time; it had a certain hoarseness to it, some sort of predatory tone.
We began listening again; I wish I hadn’t. We could still hear the sound of something moving low and slow around us, circling us, but there was something else, a second noise, a second body was circling us slowly, and we could hear the faint sound of wheezing breathing from beyond the foliage.
We knew we had to stay awake, no matter what, but as the alcohol started fading, sleep began creeping in, and I was the first to feel it.
The night continued, and we whispered carefully that we were going to pack our stuff up and leave the first sight of light, leaving the tent and the fire behind.
At this point, I had lost track of time, my body ached from standing ready for so long, and my fingers were numb from gripping the bayonet.
All my senses flared up when suddenly a noise of rustling leaves came from behind me; almost instinctively, I turned around, but a quick wave from T made me stop. “It threw a rock,” he whispered slowly, and slowly I realized that whatever it was out there, it had tried to make me turn around.
Another yelp came, and our bodies flinched at the sound.
That night was the longest of my life; we stood there throughout the entire ordeal, using our feet to shove wood into the fire while taking turns drinking Jaeger and watching each other’s backs.
When the light came, T moved past me, and I practically walked backward for a good half an hour until both of us set into a dead sprint through the woods.
When we finally got to the road, we were met with a police cruiser and two angry officers. T took some time to explain what was happening, and I noticed that the cops didn’t look surprised; we were taken into the cruiser and taken back to Cluj; T told me that we were not to speak of what happened in the woods.
A little later, T told me one of the forest rangers had been attacked and killed in the woods that same night by an unknown animal that had only managed to partly devour the man’s innards before the body was discovered.
It’s safe to say there’s something in Hoia Baciu, and I would not suggest going there, take this story as a warning. Do not. Go. Into those woods.
I regret going there.”
Encounter #2
My grandmother was Romanian, and she had some of the scariest damn stories I have ever heard.
We only visited her twice and I was very young, but I do remember this story she told me that has stuck with me to this day.
She lived along a remote road surrounded by farmland and some homes.
One day we were walking to her neighbor’s farm when we passed by a field that led up to a large forest.
I remember my grandmother was walking with determination when I asked her why that little girl in the woods was waving at us.
She told me to keep my eyes on the road and continue walking, but I didn’t. This time the girl was beckoning me to her and then pointing into the woods.
I tugged on my grandmother’s skirt, and she grabbed my hand angrily and continued walking faster to her neighbor’s house.
Once we got inside her neighbor’s house, I asked again, Who was that girl’s grandmother? Her neighbor’s eyes got wide, and she excused herself to make us some tea.
My grandmother hesitated before telling me the story of her youngest sister Ioana. (Ee-yawn-uh)
My youngest sister was a beautiful little girl like yourself.
She was full of energy and was always disappearing to go exploring. As children, our mother told us we were never to go into the forest alone and if it could be avoided to do so.
Ioana came to me one morning with a mischievous smile and asked if we could take a walk.
We walked along our dirt road until it hit the edge of the woods; I suggested we turn back, and she simply smiled and continued walking.
I called to her to come back, but she ignored me and continued moving deeper into the woods.
I grabbed up my skirt and chased after her, calling her name into the woods. She continued to run deeper and deeper into the forest, I followed closely behind her, but the woods seemed to grow darker and thicker with each step.
Eventually, I could not even see her tiny white body against the green and brown of the forest, and I noticed the sky was growing dark.
I knew we had only been running for a short amount of time, yet somehow the day was gone.
The sun was hiding beneath the canopy of trees, and I knew not only was it going to get dark but I had no idea where I was. I called for Ioana once again, but no sound came; it was then that I realized the silence of the forest, unlike any I had heard before.
I felt the panic creep up my spine, and I began running back from where I had come. I slowed when I saw again the pale white against the darkness of wood.
I saw off the trail was a large clearing; I don’t know how I could have run past it without noticing it. The clearing was large and barren and seemed to be in the shape of a giant circle; standing in the middle was my sister.
She was smiling in her white dress, mud staining the bottoms, and her tiny hand clutched a tall man.
If you could call him that. He was thin and pale like the trees marked by fire. He wore a black suit that seemed oddly large on his thin harsh bones, and he held my sister’s hand and a long golden pocket watch in the other.
The watch glinted against the sunlight, and I put my hand up to block its rays.
When I awoke, I was alone in the field, and the morning sun was beginning to rise above the trees. I was cold and covered in dew, and frost cracked beneath my feet as I went to stand.
The woods remained silent, and yet I felt that I was not alone. My sister never came home. So that is why you must never go into the woods.”
Encounter #3
My friends and I study in Spain, and we decided to take a weekend to go to Transylvania because we wanted a spooky holiday near October.
We researched a little bit and found out that the ‘most haunted forest in the world’, locally known as Hoia-Baciu, was right next to a town called Cluj-Napoca, which had flights from a coastal town in Spain.
We made our way to Romania shortly.
We took a taxi there instead of the bus because we were losing daylight.
It was driven by an old man who didn’t want to take us far into the forest, and he made sure we wrote down the number to call for a taxi home.
After he drove off, we made our way along the path into the forest. It was maybe seven o’clock by then, and the sun was setting fast.
The forest has this weird way of blocking out sunlight more than you think it should. I had trouble seeing things fifteen feet from me even though the sun was still above the mountains to the west.
One of the three of us, for anonymity’s sake, I’ll call her Sam, got hungry and opened up her container of potstickers. The smell lured one of the local stray dogs out of hiding — we named her Daphne.
It was just a fun jest, us being the Mystery Inc. crew. I was Velma, Sam was Shaggy, and our other friend, Jane, was Fred.
These were all based on exaggerated stereotypes of ourselves, but we embraced it and had fun.
We got to a clearing where we watched the sunset and ate dinner with Daphne guarding us the whole time.
She was really timid at first and growled at other strays that tried to take her food, but eventually, she calmed down, and we were able to pet her and remove some brambles from her fur.
She was super scrawny. I could feel every rib through her skin. We fed her as much as we could, but she preferred to only eat meat.
Eventually, the sun set, I had finished my beer, and my friends were itching to get going. So we went into the forest further, stepping into a clearing that measured the length of a full-size swimming pool.
Two odd things happened when we entered that clearing. First off, people further into the forest started playing music.
There were tambourines and drums and some sort of horn. It was perfectly eerie, and we didn’t think anything of it at first.
Then there was the fact that the temperature dropped about 5° as soon as we entered the space. Jane and I commented on it almost simultaneously, as it’s a pretty common sign that something paranormal is going on. Daphne kept following us, unperturbed by either of the odd things we’d encountered.
Of course, as college-age girls are wont to do, we stopped to take some pictures.
Somewhere in the middle of taking selfies, the music had stopped. We walked up the hill towards where the music had been coming from, and we found a group with two dogs.
They were sitting in an alcove in the path. The super weird thing is all of their eyes flashed in the light like an animal’s.
No one said anything to us. Their dog followed us down the path, but no one called out to him to keep him from running away.
I think there were about five of them.
We walked further down the path, and the only thing we would see reflected in the forest were orange eyes, but small, like a squirrel or cat’s eyes.
All of us felt like we were being watched. The darkness was so stifling — we had three phone flashlights on, but there was always darkness five feet ahead of us.
And the darkness behind us. I think that was the worst part. Ahead of us, we could see some faint moonlight coming in from the gaps in the trees above.
Behind us, the gaps seemed to disappear. It was just… nothingness. Sometimes, Jane would whisper “guys” and then point to something in the distance that was a reflection of eyes or an unclear shadow. She was sure something was following us.
Our stray pup Daphne kept us all tethered to sanity.
I think I was the most frightened, but I’m also the one who has the healthiest belief in ghosts.
We eventually reached the main street, but significantly more frightened than we were before.
Sam, however, wanted to go back to the clearing. This is what we had come all the way to Cluj for, and she wanted to go in a second time. Jane doesn’t believe as much as I do, I think, but she’s still cautious about the supernatural.
Sam just doesn’t believe at all.
She wasn’t hesitant whatsoever to reenter the forest, and neither I nor Jane wanted to take this away from her, so we went back.
Daphne kept walking with us, but we could tell she was getting tired. At one point, she ran up a hill, and we lost sight of her, and for some reason — no matter what happened later on that night — Daphne being out of reach was the most frightening part.
When we reached the clearing where we’d had dinner, I asked to sit for a bit. I knew that if we kept walking, we’d end up where we had seen those people before, and I didn’t want to go back there.
We sat, and Daphne walked around the table, getting pets from all of us and putting her head on the stone surface as if she, too, was sitting on a bench, talking with us at our Mystery Inc. meeting.
We thought about what we’d seen (and about how we’d probably need to go to the pub after the night was over), and then Daphne growled. We’d only heard her growl at other dogs until this point, but there was nothing in the trees.
The forest is weird — the trees are kind of sparsely set, and there’s little to no foliage on the ground. We shone our flashlights into the black, and nothing shone back.
The minute I heard something move, I told everyone we had to leave. Jane laughed, but then Daphne sat straight up apropos of nothing — dogs have better instincts about danger than humans, so we immediately left.
On the walk back through the forest, I walked with Sam while Jane took the rear with Daphne, who was doing her best to keep up.
We heard Jane whisper “guys” once again, but we were determined to leave. She whispered it once more, just a little louder, and Sam and I both turned around to ask her what was up.
However, there was genuine confusion on her face. Jane is a fun, sarcastic spitfire, but she would never take a joke so far as to panic her friends.
She did not say the words that both Sam and I heard. We walked faster.
We left the forest quickly after that and started talking about how happy we were to be gone — but we then heard a sort of clapping noise from the forest. It was short, consisting of two claps total, and from what we hypothesized, the kind of noise you’d try to lure a dog with.
Daphne was unimpressed and followed us to the edge of the museum that borders the forest proper. I had called a taxi, and it was coming to pick us up as soon as possible, so we had to make our way to the street. As soon as we got to the border of the forest, Daphne stopped.
We petted her and said our goodbyes, and honestly, I cried a little because I felt like she was the only reason I got out of that forest, and I couldn’t do anything for her. She just wagged her tail, turned away, and walked back towards the forest.
When we got home, we compared our experiences over cheap Brie and Spanish crackers, and all of us were severely creeped out.
Somehow we got on the topic of the music we heard and then the people we saw, and Jane put down her cracker, a serious look in her eye. “You know what’s so weird? I remember seeing their eyes flash, but I don’t remember their faces.
Or even the shape of their faces. It’s so odd.” But that’s exactly how I remembered it, too. I had my flashlight on them, but there was some sort of glare that I blamed for not being able to see faces, bodies, or even where they sat.
But now I don’t know where that glare could have come from.
They didn’t talk to us or call us to their dogs — hell, none of them were smoking, which makes no sense for any European outside after the hour of 7 pm.”
Is The Hoia Baciu Forest Haunted?
What do you think, Bizarros?
What could be the cause of the supernatural activity?
Is there a UFO base in the forest?
Let us know in the comments what you think and if you’d ever go to the Haunted Hoia Baciu Forest.
Citations:
Little house of horrors
history.com
mysterious universe
travel.com
tour in Romania UFO sightings hotspots