When Maury Brock George Petrie starts the tape recorder the supply reel is on the left side, feeding tape past the recording head to the take-up reel. When Jeff Roger Smith finds the recorder, the supply reel on the left side is full and spinning, as if someone had hit rewind, and let the supply reel take up all of the tape until it came off the take-up reel. If it had been recording the entire time, all of the tape would be on the take-up reel.