Legend of Hoia Baciu Forest - Haunted?

 

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I thought that this post about a forest that is supposedly haunted would be a good start since it seems to combine a bit of legend and myths to the folklore; ha! But seriously, this Hoia Baciu place seems to be really interesting in a spooky sort of way. I've even heard that many of the trees in that area are twisted and deformed in very strange ways, which would definitely help add to the haunted effect. Before anybody gets any ideas, the two photos that I'm using for this blog post did not come from Hoia Baciu. They came from my backyard and the woods behind my backyard, so they are my personal photos, with one I obviously edited in my MS Paint program (at the bottom of this article) and the one at the start of this post involved me taking a picture of a tree after I blew smoke in front of the camera.  It's a really cool effect, eh? Anyway...  

This demented area originally got named after a shepherd. Legend has it, that the shepherd disappeared while having 200 sheep out in the forest.  Since then, there have been reports of other people coming up missing along with experiencing "time gaps" of existence.  

The 'missing in time' thing is well documented in alien abduction reports across the globe. I'm not saying that is happening there, but I've definitely heard about those stories many times down through the years. It is like they get transported into a hovering craft, totally (sometimes temporary) lose all recollection of their existence, then find their self fully functioning cognitively and wide awake with no idea what just happened, only to find out that an x-number of hours has passed, etc. 

As for the Hoia Baciu Haunted Forest, I've heard of a legend that talked about how a girl, that was only 5 years old at the time, went into this wooded area, disappeared, and nobody seen her return from the forest until five years later. What makes that even more spooky, was that she was supposedly wearing the same clothes she had on the day she came up missing when she returned. Well, I have questions about that...  I mean, did she not age any during that time? Did her clothes still fit? Did she still appear to be 5 years old, or did she come back as a 10-year-old? I'm assuming, if true, that she had a "time gap" and somehow the space-time continuum got distorted when they (aliens from UFOs, of course) returned her and accidentally sent her into the future for 5 years? I mean, if you create artificial wormholes to speed up your space travel, things can happen. I don't know, you tell me...

Good grief, I forgot to even say where this place is located... Okay, this particular boogey-boogie forest is located west of the city of Cluj-Napoca, near the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania. Yeah, move over Dracula; Transylvania has bigger fish to fry than your blood-sucking self. Okay, enough inane drivel.  Let's get back to the subject at hand...

Of course, many people that go into this wicked place often feel like someone is watching them. However, I must say, basic paranoia will accomplish that - especially if you think a place is haunted and whatnot. Speaking of that, there is plenty room to get the crap scared out of you when visiting this place, as it is about 1.16 square miles in size. The Hoia Forest is commonly known as being sort of like the land-based version of the Bermuda Triangle that is riddled with paranormal phenomena. Many urban legends and ghost stories have fueled its growing popularity over the years and has become quite the tourist attraction, to say the least.

Speaking of the paranormal, stories from this wooded area often include ghost sightings, photographic phenomena (you know, like when you take a picture and some weird entity shows up in the picture, etc.), UFOs, strange lights, glowing orbs, floating spirit heads, loud voices appearing out of thin air, eerie giggling from afar (sounds like the Bell Witch), etc. I know that those are typical phenomena for a lot of places (which is why they sell so many of those Ghost Meters / EMF Sensors), well, except for maybe the floating ghost-like heads, but that's not really the strangest part, to me.  The frequent reports about people that visit the Hoia Baciu coming back scared out of their wits, many of which complain about unexplained burns, scratches, and rashes, really gets my attention along with numerous stories of time gaps... But even the ones with "missing time" of only a couple of hours is still bizarre, when you think about it. For example, some folks claim to just go walk by a weird tree at 10 A.M., then the next thing they know it is 12 o'clock. Uh..., ya drunk much? Ha! Just kidding... 

But back to the point, if loads of people are complaining about unexplained scratches, rashes and burns from this haunted forest, you'd think somebody would quit talking about it just being a legend and go get some video proof or doctor reports, etc.  Seriously, that would be physical proof of at least something. I mean, poison oak and poisonous sumac can cause rashes; running through a forest can cause scratches, but what about the burns? What in the hell burned you?  Did you not feel it when it happened? To me, that is really strange, if true... Then again, people may be out there smoking crack trying to catch a cheap thrill (is crack cheap?) and just get burned while freebasing random drugs for all I know.

However, things are about to get even more weird... I have recently heard about more poltergeist activity at this haunted forest that involved an investigator getting thrown to the ground after being scratched by an invisible force.  The area he was at was considered the "dead zone" of the forest, which is a circular clearing where nothing seems to grow.  Hmm... I've heard stories years ago where a supposed UFO was spotted hovering at a certain place, and the ground was radiated to the point where everything died, and nothing would grow back. BUT what makes this really weird is that, if true, soil samples have been taken by specialists from this dead zone before and nothing has turned up. They claim that the soil is totally normal. Well, did they check for radiation? I'm not sure but, going by what I've read, researchers from around the world have checked this place out. Unless people are out there constantly keeping the ground dead by walking in a circle. Dang, that reminds me of when people would make artificial crop circles albeit it did distract from the possible real ones. 

On a side note, since this place supposed to have some wicked tree and plant growth within its spiritually possessed forest, it reminds me of another post I did on a Nature Blog of mine: "Eyeball Plant - Doll's Eyes"... Now that eerie plant would fit right in at that place!

Well, to end this subject, I must say that this specific area even being located close to Transylvania is enough to raise eyebrows, to say the least. Personally, whenever I do get the chance and/or free time to leisurely take a hike in the woods, I do not fantasize about a place like Hoia Baciu. Even if somebody offered me a free trip to this freakish haunted forest, I would most likely steer clear from this nefarious place. I like adventure and all of that, but screw that! Ha!

Image Credits: These are my own photos. If you would like to use them, feel free, but make sure you provide a link back to this blog for the photo credit and so on. Thanks!

---End of Post "Legend of Hoia Baciu Forest - Haunted?"