SPECTRALWhat happened here
The forest has long been used by the city's walkers, cyclists and dog owners. It came to wider attention in the 1960s, when the biologist Alexandru Sift photographed strange lights there, and in 1968, when a military technician, Emil Barnea, photographed a disc-shaped object over a clearing.
That clearing, Poiana Rotundă — the Round Meadow — is an almost perfectly round patch where trees do not grow, although the forest around it is dense.
The legends
Local legend tells of a shepherd who walked into the forest with two hundred sheep and never came out, and of a young girl who vanished there and returned years later, unchanged, with no memory of where she had been.
Visitors describe rashes, nausea and anxiety, cameras and phones that drain or fail, and faces in their photos. The forest's nickname is the Bermuda Triangle of Romania.
Fact or legend?
The bent trees are real; wind, snow, shifting soil or old cutting are the usual explanations. The UFO photos have never been verified, and the disappearances exist only in legend. The round clearing may simply have been cleared by people long ago and kept open by poor soil.
Visiting
The forest is open to everyone and easy to reach from Cluj-Napoca. Local guides run day and night tours; if you go alone, stay on the paths and carry a light.
