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One of the stranger cases that PHS ever tackled didn't result in us taking a single solitary picture. Not even a measly audio recording. Only our testimonies.

It involved the infamous Three Hills Park in San Leocadia, California, in the northern side of Las Estrellas County beyond the mountains. Half an acre of three grassy mounds arranged almost unnaturally in a triangular shape, each hill reaching equal heights of about twenty or so feet with a base almost as wide as the property itself. It seemed innocuous at first glance, and even reminded me a little of a crater if it weren't for the lack of a circular radius.

However, despite the unimaginative name, they weren't ordinary hills. According to legend, these three mounds of earth were heavily cursed. If not cursed, then outright haunted with bad juju for all who stepped foot on the property. This bad luck ranged between minor inconveniences to acts of God and even in extreme cases, death. At least in one documented instance.

Now, keep in mind: California real estate never blinked at the dangers of building mansions and tract homes on uneven terrain, let alone atop an active fault line. In fact, they relished building castles on dunes of sand. Ever since the first pioneers and ranchers decided to move to California, the value of land has never stopped skyrocketing. So, imagine being an American entrepreneur in the late 18th century, and you wanted to create motion pictures using the wondrous inventions made by Thomas Edison, but he wouldn't allow you to create them without paying fines that nowadays would be considered extortion. So, instead you and the rest of the emerging filmmakers flee all the way out west, then set up Hollywood. According to a few online sources and nothing else, one of these filmmakers had been the first to purchase the Three Hills property, only to discover the severe misfortune it brought in to him. The fact we know nothing about the filmmaker indicates he never made a name for himself.

However, according to my and Dean's research, the earliest known records of Three Hills dated back to around 1924, not too long after the iconic Hollywoodland Sign was erected on the mountains dividing San Leocadia from the rest of Las Estrellas. Allegedly, a high-ranking wolf executive from the same housing development company which built the same iconic landmark of the filming industry, also happened to have bought Three Hills. The wolf executive, a portly fellow named Mr. Sweeney, originally wanted to turn the property into a wonder home. Long story short, a series of personal tragedies and mishaps in cutting down the trees on the property lead to too many delays. Eventually, he kept the property for a few years after settling on just buying a mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

The next person to buy it was a random banker wanting to build a wonder home as well; he had it foreclosed weeks after the 1929 stock market crash. The bank would keep the property for eleven years until an emerging filmmaker rented Three Hills in order to film an action sequence in what was supposed to be his magnum opus, putting them on the map with the other big names in Hollywood. While the film did modestly at the box office, production had seen its fair share of troubles like swarms of insects preventing the actors from saying their lines properly as well as a few accidents involving falling equipment and one intern breaking their ankle. The filmmaker starkly warned his colleagues never to use Three Hills as a set for any of their projects.

The bank who owned the property eventually sold it to a TV executive, who wanted to build a cabin at the base of the three grassy mounds. Why? Get this: because he wanted a private place to bring his gay lovers and fuck them without the risk of getting caught in hotels (which often had their own layers of risk). The executive even had the framework built before a freak storm came through the region one night, and lightning struck the building. All that remained of the cabin was ash. Adding insult to injury though was when his wife outed him and his gay lover to the press. The executive lost his job shortly thereafter, because it was the 1960s. From what I'd managed to find in doing further research, the gay lover remained by his side until they both passed away a decade prior. At least they were happy.

Time passed forward. The same stories so one time for any who used or bought Three Hills. As the years rolled by and urban sprawl became a more familiar sight, nobody kept the area for long. The patch of unused property stuck out like a shaved strip of fur on the back of my ass. While every inch of land around it either got turned into condos or an office building, the three hills remain untouched. Finally, it got turned into a public park for anyone wanting to either take their families to play around on the grass or fly kites on windy weekends.

Plenty of theories ran abound about the origins of the curse. Everything from portals to Hell, a secret UFO landing site, a government base hidden under the mounds, an Indian burial ground too deep to be in the records. My favorite involved ley lines, and how the Earth energies passing through the three hills connected in a way so that the negative energies intersected together. Or whatever pseudoscience made sense for conspiracy theorists worldwide.

All I knew was that the minute me, Dean, and Samantha stepped foot on the property after interviewing the locals, things went downhill. Literally and figuratively. Samantha's digital camera and recording devices had all the batteries drained, despite them being full/turned off during the entire journey from New Mexico. Dean struggled to find our hotel access card later that night, and I couldn't connect to any of my favorite apps on my phone without losing a signal. Then, our air conditioning in the room went kaput the next morning. During an especially hot summer day. So, we decided to cut our losses and return to Nueva Fe with our tails tucked between our legs.

Thirteen hours later, several of which were spent in a traffic jam, I promised to never bring my crew with me to that goddamn park ever again. Cross my heart and hope to die, never again. Whatever caused that curse, it certainly didn't want to be interfered with or discovered.