What is the point of selling in 2.35 format a movie recorded in 1.85 format?

Even since the DVD format and the advent of 16:9 TVs made widescreen films more mainstream, there have been a number of movies that have been reformatted for home video from their original theatrical aspect ratios: The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now, Avatar, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader come immediately to mind.

However, such reformatting almost always "opens up" the mattes to give the image more height. Reformatting a 2.35:1 film to 1.78:1 (16:9) is especially common.

I don't know of any cases of the reverse, and in particular, there hasn't ever been a 2.35:1 release of E.T. The listings you link to are almost certainly in error, possibly all getting their information from the same erroneous source.

You want to see something that will really bake your noodle? The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy was apparently only released in reformatted versions:

Why the very different release formats for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

Anyway, movies are distributed in various formats, because TVs exist in various formats. Take a look at this article to see what I'm talking about. If you own a Cinemascope TV (2.4:1), you're certainly going to want to take advantage of the whole screen, where if you own a Widescreen then the 1.85:1 version of the film is what you want to buy.

I read a fascinating blog article at Premium Beat where the writer stated:

The very wide aspect of 2.39:1 makes it appealing to so many filmmakers. Just about anything will look more cinematic or more ‘filmic’ when shot in this aspect, considering that originally it was associated with the anamorphic/cinemascope look and we are trained to associate this aesthetic with higher end feature films. For this reason, I feel that 2.39 is often ideal for dramatic narrative film content that is intended for either theatrical exhibition or television/VOD distribution.

I hadn't previously considered this, but it's logical and understandable. When I see things in 2:39 ratio I definitely associate it with a more "cinematic" experience. I can totally understand the logic of converting a 1.85 film to 2.35 to achieve this effect.