‘But This Is Orange County’ . . . Not

When evidence of a brain-eating mutant was found in a Southland hamburger stand on TV’s “X-Files,” Agent Mulder said that type of crime wasn’t new. To which partner Scully said, “But this is Orange County.”

After all, viewers were told the eatery was in Costa Mesa.

But was it?

“The truth is out there,” said reader John Aston--and he means on Firestone, not Harbor, Boulevard--because the hamburger stand was actually located in South Gate.

Proprietor Jim Christides of the Lucky Boy stand confirmed that he shut down for a week for filming of the episode.

But why did Mulder and Scully think they were in Costa Mesa? Had some sinister force programmed their minds?

Yes, Aston believes: “The producers.”

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HUMAN LANDING STRIP: One Laguna Beach attraction often photographed by tourists is the noggin of Lujack Wilson, 71, which serves as a parking spot for gulls or pigeons on the city’s boardwalk (see photo).

“Nice hat,” a passerby said to Wilson the other day as a gull camped on his University of Tennessee cap. (Pigeons always give the gulls right of way.)

Of course, the birds expect to be fed after landing. “They like cheese and sourdough bread,” said Wilson, a retired Las Vegas blackjack dealer. “They must be French.”

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (800) LA TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053.