Where did our back wheel go?

I took my bike in to the shop to fix a spoke.

When the bike came back it didn't have my excellent rear wheel which this bike inherited from my old racing mtn bike. It now has some cheap shimano junk rear wheel. It should have had a Suntour XC-Pro hub, but it had some generic shimano crap. The shop says that's the wheel it came in with. But I never got a rear wheel for that bike, the bike first had it's original wheel, then since 1993 it had a radially-laced wheel I got at a bike shop's sidewalk sale, and then last year I put on the XC-Pro hubbed wheels front and rear.

So, where did my XC-Pro rear wheel go? I only lock the front wheel & frame, so someone could have swapped it. (why, though is another question.)

So we are left with a real big mystery, and a sneaking suspicion that space aliens acquired this wheel is some sort of multidimensional intergalactic craigslist.

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We know conclude the our rear wheel mystery started long before (we think we noticed some strangeness with the wheel for the first time last september) we took it in to the bike shop. It was only after this shop visit when we noticed the strangeness, but we don't think the bike shop has anything to do with it. Therefore we won't be naming the bike shop (sorry comment writer R.). Except we will note that we get always excellent service there, and they even treat these crazy questions with respect.

We conclude that someone with an excellent eye for quality swapped our rear wheel for theirs. And that's a risk you take when you leave a bike locked outside all season long with the back wheel unlocked. (Doh.) Even a well-camoflaged/aged outdoor bike like Blue can catch the eye of the nefarious members of the community.

But we are not discounting the multidimensional intergalactic craigslist, just yet. It remains a perfectly good alternative explanation. Go multidimensionality!