The article is interesting and provides details of the group's movements leading to the child disappearing. I noted that at no time does the author suggest a predator or abduction as a possible theory.
One question I would have for father and grandfather - did they see any other hikers or persons in the Spence Field area after they arrived or on the last portion of the trail as they reached that area?
There is no doubt that the Smokey Mountains has rough terrain and dense areas of growth, but in the 42 years since young Dennis went missing, you would think something would have been found unless he was taken from that location.
That's what I think too. Unless of course, what I come back to. Dennis falling and slipping into an underground area that no search or rescue teams could penetrate. If Dennis let's say, he drowned in a river. Would the chances of his remains being found in that river be literally moot? Would erosion have just washed everything, including the bones, away to nothing?
Or falling into a pit or cavern or canyon, some other underground structure that the searches could not get to in order to find the body. Trapped in an underground passageway. Did divers search the rivers? Did experience land dwellers go down into underground areas and explore to look for remains? Or was all of the searching done above ground?
The article also shows a new period of time were Bill Martin went back to camp thinking possibly that Dennis may have returned there for dinner. This was not mentioned in other sources. It is possible that during this backtracking point in time, that Dennis could have ventured further away into an opposite direction from his father who was first to begin to search.
When the grandfather reached the ranger station about 8:30 that night, how many, if any family members were looking for Dennis at that time? I recall that Bill hiked back down to the ranger station with the grandfather, but I think other accounts say the grandfather hiked to the ranger station alone as Bill contained to search.
The point being that the freshest clues probably were left from the time that Dennis went into the woods on the Appalachian Trial up to just before the storm hit that first night. Do we know the time that the storm hit the first night? Up to that time, if search and rescue was in place, maybe there would have been a better understanding of where Dennis went, and what happened to him.
It would also be interesting flash forward to 2011, and see what the search and rescue team would have done that they didn't do back in the Summer of 1969.
Satch