Okay so my dad just came up with this amazing theory on why Dale failed. He didn't take one of the slips of paper from the bottle tree.
The numbers written on the paper aren't dates, but coordinates. So if he had taken that piece of paper, he would have been transported to that place. Guaranteed.
Now you may be wondering what about Tabitha? She didn't have coordinates. Oh hoh but she DID. In was written in the lunchbox. That's how she ended up in Maine.
Thank you and also fuck Dale. Hated that piece of shit. Brutal ending but, y'know, maybe don't be an asshole and make everything worse.
!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS BELOW !!!
*same energy as this one shot in the pool*
I'm making this part under a reblog of this fantastic theory as it connects very much with what I have to say about this topic. Yes indeed, the numbers in the bottles are probably not dates, but coordinates indicating f.ex. number of someone's house somewhere in the regular world (I will speak further on this exact issue in a future part because I've learned some VERY interesting information on the internet).
I'm having the ending of episode 5 in the background as I'm writing this, and I didn't notice anything stone-realted with Dale that would serve as an idea for The Bottle Tree to send him to the fantastic spawn point it chose for him. Therefore it was probably indeed a reminder for the townspeople not to mess with these forces or a punishment for him. However - the bottom of the pool is, not strikingly far, but definitely below the ground level, so Dale might as well have been unlucky to be sent to some tunnel without an entrance.
It was morbidly gruesome death but at least we got concrete proof you cannot hop in and out of The Bottle Tree out of the blue whenever you feel like.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.