Those looking for yet still more info can find some of the hunters stories in their own words, photos of my disguise changes from day to day, and the behind-the-scenes of Wired’s challenges and clues.

Sometime next week, we’ll also set up a live chat of some sort to answer any remaining questions that anybody has. We’ll put out word on the Twitter #vanish stream, of course, with details.

Then, this Saturday, on Weekend All Things Considered, in a piece by reporter Alex Cohen. [UPDATE: Here's the link to the piece.]

I’ll post clips if and when I get my hands on them. In the meantime, here’s a recap of some of the other stories about the whole thing, from during and after:

When the contest was launched, a number of hacker sites, reality game-related blogs, and other online forums and bloggers wrote it up, including Grant Hamilton, who made an interesting meta-media comparison to the find-that-guy promotions used by newspapers in Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock. Slashdot noticed it, resulting in a fascinating and occasionally funny stream of comments.

Online news services started picking it up. CNET reported on the suspension of my Twitter account, which was eventually lifted after some typically poor Twitter customer service. ABCNews.com dove in with a long piece. Discover compared it to a real live “Where’s Waldo.” A Seattle Times columnist noted my living it up on $17 drinks at the Viceroy in L.A. Kottke.org called it “the case of the missing Wired writer.”

As the hunt started picking up, my editor Nick Thompson appeared on NPR’s national show “On the Media,” as well as local programs in around the country. One of the hunters interviewed Nick and Teeuwynn Woodruff from Lone Shark Games for a podcast, digging for clues.

Meanwhile, while in L.A. I snuck my way into a series of man-on-the-street interviews about swine flu with Amanda Congdon for SometimesDaily.com. She followed up with another video, and then posted some raw footage of the encounter.

As we headed toward the dramatic conclusion, KSL5 TV in Salt Lake City told people to watch out for me at the U.S. soccer game. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. mused about getting away in the modern age.

After I got caught in New Orleans, ABCNews.com followed up with a recap, as did NPR’s “On The Media.” CBSNews.com talked to Jeff Reifman, my nemesis, to find out how he did it. Nick and I appeared on CNN.com Live, me with my head newly shorn. Chris Rose of the New Orleans Times Picayune covered the New Orleans angle. Slashdot revisited the whole thing, and the commenters took a few more good shots. I got a little shout out from my celiac compatriots for bringing attention to the condition.

Reifman told his side of the capture at NewsCloud, and then rounded up the contest’s media appearances, which I am now further rounding up.

But left out of all of this, of course, was what the hell I was up to that whole time. For that story, you’ll have to check out the December Wired…

I’ll be describing those 25 days in great detail in the December issue. There were almost daily surprises, both in what I found myself doing, and what I saw (and, of course, failed to see) the “hunters” doing to find me.

But for now I wanted to offer an extended thanks. First, to my friends and family, some of whom were made unwitting participants in this privacy-obliterating endeavor, and all of whom—especially my wonderful girlfriend (whose name the dedicated hunters know already)—were incredibly understanding and played along. Also to Nick Thompson, who sacrificed an insane amount of hours from other work and from promoting his own book (“The Hawk and The Dove,” which is getting a fantastic response, and which everyone should check out), to serve as the lead investigator. Without Nick, the whole thing would have failed in a multitude of ways. As well everyone at Wired and Lone Shark Games (particularly Teeuwyn Woodruff and Mike Selinker), both for enabling it and putting in many of their own hours. And finally to all the folks who hunted me—and aided me—for contributing their obsession and ingenuity, and especially for (with a few pretty harmless exceptions) honoring the rules about harassing my family. Many have emailed—and I want to hear from anyone who followed it: eratliff@atavist.net—to let me know they were glad I was caught. I don’t blame them. And although I was disappointed, I’m pretty pleased that at least it was by a clever bunch like Jeff Reifman and the guys at Naked Pizza.

I’d also like to offer an apology, to people I encountered along the way and deceived about my identity. It was one of the worst parts of the whole experience. I’ve been contacting them individually to explain whenever possible (a strange journalistic endeavor, that), and they’ve so far been gracious and forgiving, taking the whole thing in the spirit of fun it was intended. But many I won’t be able to find, and to them I am sorry. I won’t write about anyone by name who hasn’t given me explicit approval to do so.

To critics who griped that it wasn’t “real” enough; that it was either too easy to find me or (as people argued right up until I was caught) too difficult; that a “true” man-on-the-run would or wouldn’t have done this or that; I can only say: You nailed it! I wasn’t, in fact, a “real” fugitive. Very well observed, and I fully support your conviction that you would have done it better. But in our case, we were trying to remain, as much as possible, both authentic and engaging, two goals that were often in conflict. In compressing my time on the lam into 30 days, with the general public as the investigators, we didn’t exactly have a model to follow. You may also find that many of the things people found most “unreal,” like me using my ATM and credit cards at times, were not at all what they seemed.

Finally, to accusations of carrying out a “stunt,” I plead guilty to all but the pejorative assumption—given that category would include the journalistic “stunts” behind “Hell’s Angels,” “The Paper Lion” (and other Plimpton adventures), “Into Thin Air,” and “Nickled and Dimed,” among other pieces of narrative nonfiction that I greatly admire. We attempted what we thought was a unique, albeit self-indulgent and inevitably flawed, reporting venture. We’re hoping readers will find the results as fascinating as we did. But you can check out the December article and decide for yourselves.