Remember, we’ve already had two different explanations for where he went. His wife claimed he’d gone off to write, although she didn’t know where, then his spokesman claimed he was out hiking the Appalachian Trail. And yet, even in some of the reports of his absence yesterday, the curious fact that his cell phone signal was last detected near Atlanta was being noted.

Now this. Eccentric disappearances are bad enough, but eccentric disappearances plus lies?

On Tuesday, sources told News 4’s Nigel Robertson that a state vehicle is missing and was tracked down, not to the Appalachian Trail, but to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta.

Sources told Robertson that a federal agent spotted Sanford in the airport boarding a plane. Robertson was told that the governor was not accompanied by security detail.

Sanford has been out of reach for more than four days, including Father’s Day.

Sawyer has emphasized that the governor was hiking on the Appalachian Trail and that it wasn’t something the staff or Jenny Sanford were concerned about.

But sources told WYFF News 4 that the federal agent who spotted Sanford saw him at the Atlanta airport, which is about 80 miles from the start of the trail.

Sanford’s a guy with many political enemies, even within his own party, so it’s not unthinkable that someone seized on the detail about his cell phone and spun some garbage about a mysterious flight out of it. And yet, the fact that even his wife didn’t know where he was going is decidedly odd and suspicious. What if there was a family emergency? Exit question: Theories? Is this a set up or a cover up? And does Mrs. Sanford really not know his whereabouts?