Anne Heche's Lost Weekend

Aug. 22, 2000 -- The already-strange story of Anne Heche’s dazed and confused rural ramblings over the weekend has gotten even more outlandish.

While there’s still been no official statement from the actress’s camp, sources say her disorientation and confusion when she turned up on the doorstep of strangers near Fresno, Calif., may be due to (surprise, surprise) drugs.

Because Heche had just announced her split with her companion of three years, Ellen DeGeneres, speculation has run high that the Six Days, Seven Nights actress was on a bit of a post-breakup bender.

“There are indications she may have been under the influence of some sort of drug,” a law enforcement source told the Fresno Bee. Heche made statements indicating that she may have been taking the drug Ecstasy, according to the Bee’s sources.

Heche’s Drug-Fueled Ramblings?

According to television station KSEE, one Fresno County deputy wrote in his report, “She proceeded to tell me that she was God and was going to take everyone back to heaven with her in some sort of spaceship.”

Heche was found on the doorstep of a farmhouse in rural western Fresno County Saturday, after she knocked on the door and made “strange statements” to the residents. An ambulance and sheriff’s deputies were summoned and Heche was taken to a nearby hospital.

Sheriff’s Lt. Merrill Wright said: “We determined that there was a medical problem and sent her to University Medical Center.”

The hospital has denied treating anyone named Anne Heche, but according to television station KFSN in Fresno, hospital records show that Heche was released early Sunday after being seen by doctors for two hours.

‘No Rhyme or Reason’

“I have no idea why she was where she was,”Wright said Monday. “There’s no rhyme or reason why she should have been at Nebraska and Highway 33.” Heche apparently abandoned her Toyota sport utility vehicle Saturday afternoon near the intersection in question before walking a mile along a tiny dirt road to the home, where residents called the sheriff’s office for help.

Heche may have been bound for Saturday’s First Women’s Music Festival at Yosemite’s Tenaya Lodge, but the actress was not spotted there all day, the Bee reports.

In any event, Heche was out of there by Monday morning; the pixie-haired actress was photographed at Los Angeles International Airport boarding a plane to Toronto, where she’s directing a movie starring Denzel Washington.

Media Feeding Frenzy in Fresno

So, might it have been someone other than the former better half of the glamorous lesbian couple? “It was her,” Wright said Monday. “We were able to identify her, yes.”

Since the news of Heche’s lost weekend broke, the Sheriff’s Department and the hospital have been deluged with calls from all over the world. “It’s nuts,” Lt. Gary Tigh said. “There’ve been people calling from here to Timbuktu.”

“I haven’t seen anything quite like this since the Coalinga earthquake,” Wright told the Bee.

Sheriff’s officials said they’ve been asked to confirm even crazier rumors, including one that Heche was found wandering naked on Interstate 5.

“That was just plain wrong,” Tigh said.