Two fathers had a frightening experience after their children picked up what appeared to be candy from a porch in Ocean Beach while trick-or-treating, only to discover the packaging identified the treats as psilocybin mushroom gummies. The San Diego Police Department is investigating the Hallowee n incident, but questions remain about who left the gummies outside the home and whether they actually contained illegal drugs. Frank Cary and Cameron Hunter were trick-or-treating with their children and several neighborhood families Saturday night when they made the discovery. The parents said they were walking just a few yards behind their children when the kids approached a porch with a bowl of what appeared to be candy. Cary said his 2-year-old grabbed one of the packages before he noticed something unusual about it. “My 2-year-old went up and grabbed one and started walking away with it in his hand,” Cary told NBC 7. “I noticed the picture had a giraffe and words that looked like they were melting. I took it out of his hand and saw that there was a dosage on the front of it. Five grams, [then I ] flipped it around and read ‘psilocybin mushrooms.’” The parents immediately checked the rest of their children’s trick-or-treat bags before returning to the house, where they said the bowl was still sitting outside. Hunter recorded part of the encounter on his cellphone, confronting a woman at the home about the gummies. Homeowner denies leaving gummies outside When NBC 7 visited the home two days after Halloween, the homeowner approached and disputed the parents’ account of the situation. He said his wife had been confused when strangers came to their door and confronted her about the packages. The homeowner also said the house rarely receives visitors, even on Halloween, because of its reputation in the neighborhood. “I don’t know, everyone thinks it’s like the witch house or the dead house or the scary house or something,” Shawn Barger said. He denied that the bowl or gummies belonged to his household, saying the packages were too expensive for him to have purchased simply to leave outside. “I looked it up and they’re like 20 bucks a piece. It’s probably like $300 worth of gummies. I don’t have $300 to, like, spend to make myself look bad, you know what I mean. It’s ridiculous,” Barger said. San Diego police investigating suspected drug gummies The San Diego Police Department confirmed they received a report on Halloween about a home potentially distributing drugs to children. Investigators have not yet confirmed what the gummies contain. Lt. Cesar Jimenez said testing will be necessary before determining whether a crime occurred or whether anyone could face charges. “Looking back in retrospect, of course I wouldn’t stop at that house, but they had a bucket of candy,” Hunter said. “For us, we live in a very diverse community and seeing a bowl of what looked like candy out there, one would assume it was open for kids to trick-or-treat at,” Cary added. Jimenez said the parents handled the situation as authorities would recommend: They accompanied their children, checked what they had collected, safely confronted the people at the home and contacted police. The investigation remains ongoing, with authorities working to determine what the gummies contained and how they ended up on the porch. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less