Weird News of Week: Plum Island Hits TV, Hotel Crasher Gets Comfy

As a local news organization, Patch covers stories of all kinds, from heartbreaking tragedies to inspiring tales of community brotherhood. But some stories are just plain weird. Here are some of the stranger headlines from the past seven days.

A Garden City man was arrested on a charge of second-degree criminal trespassing after hotel guests said they found him sleeping in their room at the Culloden House in Montauk on July 6. The guests had come back to their room to find the screen had been taken off the window frame and the window was open. Before calling the police they asked the man several times to leave, but he just wouldn't.

Official rushed to a home in Flanders on Wednesday after they received reports that a bomb was thrown on to the front yard there. But according to Southampton Town Police, the fire marshal's office arrived first, about 10:50 a.m., and quickly determined that the item was not a bomb. Though they never said what it actually was.

Two 25-year-old men got all mucked up recently on a kayacking trip on the Nissequogue River. Suffolk County Police received a call late last Sunday around 11 p.m. from a concerned mother of one of the men, saying her son had gone out kayaking with a friend around 5:30 p.m. and had yet to return home. Nine fire departments responded to search for the duo, who were eventually spotted after their canoe got stuck in the mud.

A new television episode focused on the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center will air on the Discovery Channel as part of a new series called “America’s Most Secret: Structures,” Sunday at 9 p.m. and again at 11 p.m. The center has long been a target of local lore for all the animal diseases that have been researched at this very-close-to-the-mainland laboratory. But aside from the engaging topic of the program, we're especially stoked because North Fork Editor Erin Schultz will play a huge role on camera during the episode. She was interviewed and featured as one of the local experts on the island.

While the news this week that the Hampton Bays Historical Society unveiled it's new 2012 tree ornament, featuring an etching of the former , isn't exactly weird, the timing is. Unless the historical society was just trying to break up the so-far sweltering summer by hinting at the colder months that will no doubt come this winter.