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It was an interesting puzzle, I like desert hiking, and it was a challenge I needed in my life at that time.
I talk about it a little here (time stamped to the correct location):
I think confirmation bias plays a role here. At the point where I think Bill probably went wrong (of course we will never know for sure), there's a junction of two basically identical jeep trails, neither of which are marked on the park map or most of the then-current trail maps (they are on the topo map). There's 3 or 4 different ways he might have gone down the wrong road - others have mentioned the two I put out there, there's a couple of other ways that are possible but less plausible so I didn't bother with them - but he should have noticed he was going south and not east, by the setting sun. However, because of the angle of the road and the mountain cover, plus having an obvious road to follow, I can see why he wouldn't have. The sun would still more or less be setting behind him, and to his right, on either route. If he was focused on making time, it's unlikely he'd note the exact angle of the sun.
My feeling is that because Bill was in a hurry, he did not get out things like a compass or (maybe, depending on how he got lost) more detailed maps until he knew he was lost and by that time he was screwed by the darkness and the topography of the area which wouldn't allow him to dead reckon back unless he could find the trail again, and at that point it was a wash, of which there are a half dozen in the area. I basically cover this in the video, there's a lot of information there so it can be hard to follow, but there are reasons why the compass didn't get him out of the situation.
OK, I was gonna stay out of this, but I have to call b.s. (respectfully) on your take.
Solution 1 was indeed always the most likely but I have just as much an issue with the bias towards the unexpected solution as the bias towards the mundane one when the latter does not fit the facts as known.
Your comment is a perfect example of this. Your Solution 3 sounds comfortably mundane except that it's impossible. The ranger reported his information in real time, not after the fact. Solution 4 is likewise virtually impossible because of the timeline and the number of different agencies involved. So while they sound more plausible on the surface, they have no validity. They just sound less kooky. It contributes even less to understanding the case than the U-Haul. It's noise.
This is the problem with arranging our thinking solely on the basis of favoring a conventional answer.
At that time we had a situation where Ewasko had not been found anywhere he'd be expected to be found, we had a ping that geographically made no sense (and that was timed suspiciously, though it turned out to be complete coincidence), and we had eyewitnesses (park employees, one of whom was tasked to find the car) who missed his car three times, and the one who said his car was turned around was absolutely adamant on this point. There was also a lot of ancillary evidence for a self-disappearance that again later turned out to be coincidental. But it was there. It wasn't aliens, and it wasn't really that much of an evidential reach if you knew as much about the case as I did.
So everyone else, like you, had just handwaved this all away. I had, and still have, a problem with that. So I made the honest attempt to reconcile the eyewitness fact set and put it out there - knowing full well I was going to look like an ass in so doing, even though I said right up front that this was a far-fetched idea, and it comprised about 2% of an exhaustive blog on the case which, may I add, correctly stated in another section where he was most likely to be found.
And yes, it did contribute to the case because it forced people to think of a better scenario which no one had yet done. And someone did - they posited that because of the layout of the parking area, Mimi Gorman had indeed seen (or thought she had seen) the car parked in reverse because of the angle she was viewing it coming back from Keys' View. Better explanation that didn't dodge the problem, which I immediately accepted. It would not have happened but for the U-Haul.
I get my back up about this a little because there's an understandable - but in my opinion intellectually lazy - bias against a non-mundane solution because of the amount of conspiracy theory b.s. on the internet. Look, I get it. Extraordinary claims required extraordinary proof. But this was not a claim. It was simply an idea for discussion and through it, a better idea came out of it which by the way I immediately accepted as more plausible.
Now I could have said "I don't want to look like a dummy because internet critics will jump all over it despite the years I've put into this case seize on this one little thing because it's an easy smackdown" which was indeed a predictable outcome. And in retrospect I wish I had not put it out there. But at the time, not doing so felt like an act of cowardice. So I put it in the blog, heavily codiciled, and the internet did what it did. I also by the way allowed myself to look like an idiot by pretending I thought foul play was plausible - which I never did - because it's what the family thought and I didn't want to add to their pain suggesting Ewasko took off in case I was wrong. And of course, I was.
I think I've atoned for my past sins with the videos I've put up, which admit to my theoretical mistakes, but as it said, those mistakes built to a full understanding of the case. That's how scientific inquiry works, and science is full of far-fetched ideas that were ridiculed but later turned out to be right. This was not, of course, one of them. But if they fit the facts I don't think we should mock those ideas out of existence.
Thank you for your time.
Ha, I'll never live the U-Haul down.
To be fair to myself, it was a thought experiment to try to reconcile all the conflicting witness statements and it was the only scenario I could come up with. It was part of a very exhaustive run down of the case that (in another section) also fairly accurately predicted the area Bill might be found and the reasons why he'd be there. To me, you have to go where the evidence takes you and you shouldn't pre-emptively shut down weird explanations that also happen to fit the facts. But...you shouldn't buy into them, either (or put them out in public, as I have learned)!
Really appreciate the shout out on this blog, and the commitment to reason and inquiry underlying it.