Spotter of Tree-Drying Conspiracy Just May Need to Dry Out Himself

The police log of the Coastline Pilot said a Laguna Beach resident asserted that when limousines left a hotel on Pacific Coast Highway, “trees dried up as they passed at 4:32 a.m. He told police he believed the incident had something to do with a government science experiment.”

Government officials denied it (but isn’t that what you’d expect them to do?).

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Teed off? This Halloween weekend seems the perfect time to spotlight the vehicle that Chris Austin of Calabasas modified (see photos). Just the thing for the guy whose golf game is killing him.

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Unusual Outfits Dept.: Don Stockwell of Pomona, meanwhile, saw an ad for what was apparently a costume for Captain Kidd’s plumber (see photo).

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Ah, Halloween memories ....: “Two customers dressed as vampires engaged in a fight with two men dressed as women” in a bar, the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise reported three years ago this week. “One of the vampires bit one of the men.”

Couldn’t you sort of sense that trouble was in the offing?

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Costume for a space alien, perhaps: A bathing suit intended for someone with more legs than Earthlings possess was spotted by Dolores Wong of L.A. (see accompanying).

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Things that go bump in the night: “A woman was reportedly pounding on the hood of her car, shouting and demanding to know who had hit her,” the crime log of the Huntington Beach Independent said the other day.

Or was she auditioning for TV?

Old-timers may recall that, in the days of live television, KTLA (Channel 5) announcer Dick Lane would pound the hoods of cars he was trying to sell. He eased up after the fender of one fell off. Remember, this was live.

And Don Barrett’s la.radio Web site recalled this week that during breaks on the 1950s KTLA show “Demolition Derby,” car dealer Les Bacon “would sledge-hammer an old jalopy, and keep lowering the sales price for every broken or dented part.”

Reality TV -- the early years.

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miscelLAny: Getting back to the Huntington Beach Independent’s lively crime log, neighbors on one street “were seen fighting,” the newspaper said Friday, “and one reportedly threw a bar of soap at the other.” Hey, at least it was a clean fight.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.