PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Palm Springs police are investigating a break-in at an upscale vacation home in which someone wrote messages reminiscent of the Manson family murders of 1969 on the walls and formed a pentagram on the floor.

Police spokesman Sgt. Mitch Spike said in a news release that a cleaning crew discovered last Friday that the house had been broken into.

Someone had pried open a sliding glass door and, once inside, set about turning the pictures on the walls backward and flipping every chair in the house upside down.

Sticks were used to form a large pentagram on the floor, Spike said, and someone wrote "Helter Skelter," "Pigs," and "Blood" around the house.

Spike said he wasn't sure what the vandals used to write the words, but it wasn't blood.

It was unclear what, if anything, had been stolen, Spike said.