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The main points of: What the end of Picnic at Hanging Rock means according to the cast and director

Is the culprit supernatural, allegorical or an ugly reality?

Hanging Rock is a cautionary tale about societies so afraid of uncertainty that they demand conformity by any means.

The actual last chapter (18) detracts more than it adds to solving the mystery.

The actual Hanging Rock was a meeting place for three or four indigenous tribes.

(In relation to the Amazon video series) One possibility is that the entire story takes plae inside of Mrs. Appleyard's head.

Mrs. Appleyard's backstory implies she was sold into sex slavery as a child. She escaped by killing her pimp.

Other possible explanations include the girls simply falling to their death inside of a crevice so the bodies weren't found; the girls were raped by a couple of guys and their bodies disposed of or the girls were abducted by space aliens. (Who just happened to be hanging out somewhere above Hanging Rock.)

(Or, if you want another one I've haven't seen elsewhere, remember Edith mentioning something about a red cloud? Maybe that was the girls and the teacher being vaporized by the angry space aliens or some kind of violent energy vortex.)