The Smurfs in Orange County?

(Pic: Don Kelsen/LAT)

Most bizarre story of the week -- and this is Monday, so that's saying a lot -- goes to the mysterious deep forest figurines in Orange County.

Mike Hazzard and Ed Schlegel discovered a well-placed group of figurines -- made to look like a village -- somewhere in the Santa Ana Mountains. Whose figurines are these? How do they maintain it? Is Smurfette really as hot as we all remember? The L.A. Times writes:

They were bushwhacking through chaparral in search of endangered southern steelhead trout when they came across a small clearing in the San Mateo Wilderness north of Camp Pendleton, about 15 miles east of San Juan Capistrano and near where Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties meet.

Nestled neatly under the sage, in a hard, flat area choked with dust, was a tidy village of ceramic houses and bunny figurines. The eight houses stood 5 to 7 inches tall and featured chimneys and steep roofs of gleaming green, yellow and pink. Scattered among them were 11 miniature bunnies.

"I just looked off to the side," recalled Schlegel, 65, a retired Los Angeles County fire captain who spotted the village first, "and there were the little ceramic houses like gingerbreads. I thought, 'This is strange' — it was definitely placed there, but who knows with what intent?"

Noting its exact location on a map, the friends returned to their hidden "Bunnyville" several times over the next few years, and each visit gave the mystery new depth. They noticed that the toy village was well maintained; the foliage surrounding it neatly clipped and the ceramic houses polished and cleaned. Once they found footprints.

"Obviously somebody holds it in high regard," Hazzard said. "It's definitely someone's secret spot."

At social gatherings they'd talk about the bizarre ceramic village with their friends.

Then one night Schlegel told the story again.

"Sounds kind of like something I saw," one man replied.

What he saw, it turned out, was another miniature ceramic village, this one with more of an alpine theme, in the same forest, atop a mossy rock ledge.

"I was amazed," said John Kaiser, 67, leader of the Sierra Club team that had come upon the alpine village more than a year before.