The eerie forest known as the 'Bermuda Triangle of Romania' - Stuff.co.nz

Forget Count Dracula's castle; the creepiest place in Transylvania is a forest referred to as the "Bermuda Triangle of Romania".

Named after a shepherd who went missing in the forest with a flock of 200 sheep, Hoia Baciu attracted global attention in 1968 when military technician Emil Barnea photographed what he claimed was a UFO hovering over "The Clearing" - a barren area of the forest in which the trees stop in a perfect oval.

Call him crazy or fraudulent if you like, but one has to wonder why he would make such a claim when the Communist government at the time considered believers in the paranormal mad and potentially dangerous.

Most locals are afraid to enter the forest, which lies just outside the city of Cluj-Napoca, as a result of the paranormal activity said to have happened there, according to the forest website.

The most common of these include the sudden appearance of "mysterious orbs of light", "disembodied female voices" and laughter and apparitions.

That some visitors have reported unexplained rashes, "intense feelings of anxiety and the feeling of being constantly watched", nausea and light-headedness probably dissuades a few people too.

SERGIU VALENAS/UNSPLASH
Hoia Baciu's twisting and spiraling trees lend it a spooky atmosphere.

Electronic devices are also said to malfunction in the forest, where trees grow in zig-zag or spiral patterns, something that no scientist has been able to explain. Moreover, every tree that spirals does so in a clockwise direction.

Stories of people going missing in the forest and reappearing with no recollection of where they've been have convinced some that it is a gateway to another dimension.

Among the more dramatic tales is that of a five-year-old girl who got lost in the forest and emerged five years later, unchanged and wearing the same clothes.