I know this thread was started in February but I read all of it and something is awry. Besides the usual thing of people asking him questions that he (the OP) had already answered, a lot doesn't add up.
He used a lot of terms like an experienced drone pilot. Yes, he could have educated himself quickly with Google and he DOES seem quite intelligent but there are errors in his story.
He saw a green light flashing in the woods for a WEEK and "just ignored it?" Maybe flashing green lights in the woods are a common occurrence in his neighborhood.
He said he put the battery in and turned it on to see if it would "fly back to a GPS tag in my house". Why would he want it to fly back into HIS house?
He said he couldn't find an SD card. He did enough research to learn what a gimbal was but he couldn't find the manual to locate the SD card?
He later found the card but said it was corrupted and he probably had a bad connection because the camera, etc. was damaged. Earlier he said he'd connected to all the ports and could get nothing. Now, suddenly he got connected? Why didn't he remove the card as instructed? If he removed the card and put it in his computer, a damaged camera connection or damaged connection to the drone would have no bearing whatsoever.
He said he was going to call DJI and after one unsuccessful attempt, he kept saying he was going to try again "today" but this apparently never occurred.
He also said he was going to take it to a local shop to have them attempt to retrieve the flight logs. He apparently forgot to do so.
Then, finally, after trying everything he could to find the owner (other than calling DJI or having the local shop pull the data files), including asking for help here, he suddenly disappears. No updates, no "thanks, people", nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
If he was truly the upstanding guy he seemed to be, he'd also be courteous enough to post back to assuage those of us waiting with bated breath of a final outcome, favorable or not. Maybe it was HIS drone and he had to have a cover story so his wife wouldn't be upset with him for spending so much money and then crashing it ("Honey, I found this in the woods. Look at all I'm doing to find the owner. I've even posted on a drone forum"). If that's the case, perhaps a "Honey, it followed me home. Can I keep it? Huh?Huh? Can I keep it, PLEEEZE?" would have worked just as well. Something isn't right in Wonderland.