[E.T] Why did E.T. leave Elliott alone in the woods while phoning home?

E.T. is my all-time favorite movie and I watched it everyday as a kid and at least 1x a year as an adult.

But even though I think its a fantastic screenplay, there is one story beat that never made any sense to me, even though I’ve never seen anyone else mention it.

E.T. and Elliott fly into the woods to use their space communicator. They have a conversation about Elliott wanting E.T. to stay, E.T. tells Elliott he’s too homesick. There’s a slight point of tension but they overall seem to be happy their device is working. But when Elliott wakes up, E.T. is gone. Elliott goes home and tells his brother, who searches the area, and has to bike at least some distance before he notices E.T. dying in a culvert.

But the thing that never made sense to me is – why did E.T. go to that culvert in the first place?

E.T. and Elliott were getting along so well they had a psychic connection.

E.T. want to stay where the communicator was sending a signal from to be there when the spaceship arrives.

E.T. was easily skittish and often child-like so we’d assume woldl want to stay near Elliott for that reason as well.

So what the hell was he doing so far away?

I know the answer is “it’s a movie” and the movie has plenty of plotholes. But the reason this one bothers me is that it’s an emotional plothole, while others are logical plotholes.

The cut to Elliott in the morning alone in the woods is clearly meant to have a bit of a distressing impact and is the start of the movies act 3 conflict with the government. But you watch it, it raises the question of why E.T. is gone. Was he mad at Elliott? Was it something connected to the conversation? Perhaps since Elliott wanted to go home, he thought he’d no longer be a burden on him so Elliott would leave?

Or perhaps its simply “its just a movie, they wanted that shot of Elliott alone + give space in the script for the older brother to start morphing from irresponsible bully to responsible protector”. It certainly accomplished both those goals, but ive just always been bothered by the movie raising the quesiton “Why did E.T. ditch Elliott?” then never answered it.