LOST-Theories.com

The sky was all purple, there were people running everywhere.

— raygun

I was dreamin’ when I wrote this; forgive me if it goes astray. With apologies to Stephen Hawking and all of the theories here that got me thinking.

All I wanted to do was to explain to myself why the sky turned purple after the activation of the fail-safe, and in order to fully explain it I ended up writing this… Thanks for your patience.

At some point in the distant past, possibly due to some planet-wide cataclysmic event such as an asteroid strike, the magnetic poles of the Earth shifted from their previous location, one of which was centered on the island itself, to their current location. The current magnetic North and South, however, are much weaker in strength than the previous poles had been. The “unique properties of the island” are what remains of the previous magnetic pole resonating throughout the volcanic rock of the island. As a localized phenomenon, this natural magnetic field grew in power, creating what would later come to be called a “Casimir Effect.”

Unbeknownst to the natives, time passed slower on the island than elsewhere on the planet. Eventually this time dilation caused the island itself to disappear from view of the outside world because light traveling to it was reflected at such a slow rate as to not be perceptible by the human eye. As a result, the island natives would have been cut off from the rest of the world by any means of ordinary seafaring vessels of the era. Over time (which they now had much more of than the rest of the world) such a closed society would have evolved differently (e.g. four toes) and prolonged exposure to the extreme magnetic field may have had biological consequences. At first it may have manifested itself as a vastly superior immune system, protecting the island’s inhabitants from all disease. Only later did they discover that this same blessing would lead to the inability of the women to carry their babies to term, as each pregnancy was mistaken as an infection by the mother’s body. The resulting attack on the fetus was catastrophic for both mother and child, and in time, the entire population of the island.

Over the years, travelers who might by chance stumble upon this uninhabited paradise island would not realize that time was passing slowly. The days and nights that passed over the sphere of the island would be interpreted locally in a normal fashion. The traveler would thus only be confused upon their return to their home of their inability to account for the large lapse in time. And with the limited navigational tools and skills at their disposal, they would never be able to find their way back to the island again. As the years passed, more and more travelers stumbled upon the island, and some chose to make it their home. Those that did enjoyed good health and prolonged life, but no offspring.

The “Black Rock” was one of those ships that crashed the shores of the island, possibly run aground after its navigation by magnetic bearing was effectively scrambled. Its current resting place, having once been the shoreline, now sits well inland due to the slow but steady upheaval of volcanic rock. Most of its crew remained for a time, but after the death of their Commander they eventually returned to their homes only to discover that decades had passed. By now, technology had improved to the point that more scientific approaches and disciplines could be employed to discover the location of the island, and Alvar Hanso (immediate SON and heir of Commander Magnus Hanso) and the now-global HANSO Corporation set out to do just that.

The existing Dharma Initiative headed by Gerald and Karen DeGroot was a noble effort that was co-opted as a cover for the financial exploitation that HANSO hoped to gain by taking advantage of the time dilation effect on the island that, as of yet, could not be explained.

Through trial and error, Dharma discovered that as they neared the projected location of the island all mechanical devices in operation would break down as the machine parts in one time attempted to function with the machine parts functioning in another. They finally settled on utilizing a passive method of crossing the invisible barrier between time references such as sailboat (ala the Black Rock), hot air balloon, and eventually submarine running silent. These vehicles, as well as the human body, proved to be flexible and/or strong enough to endure the transition between time references. Later, we will discover that airplanes, jet airliners and helicopters flying low over the island essentially disintegrate in mid-air attempting to function.

Once a method of safe passage to the island was established, the Dharma Initiative essentially moved in. Projects were established throughout the island to realize the team’s mission “to study its unique properties for the betterment of mankind and advancement of world peace.” Because of the time dilation, team members were recruited with the expectation that they would sever all ties with the rest of the world, as decades would likely pass before they could return. This fact was most likely kept from all but the most senior team members.

By this time, the understanding of quantum physics and general relativity had matured to a point along with advanced technology that HANSO committed to study the time dilation effect in earnest. Using the Dharma Initiative as cover, specialists were secretly recruited to experiment and explore the possibility of creating temporal worm-holes as theorized possible as an extension of the Casimir Effect. Due to the time dilation in effect, normal radio communications off the island were not possible. Electronic communication from the island with the outside world was made possible using fiber-optic cable via the Looking Glass station. Prior to transmission, the wave-lengths of the light pulses would need to be expanded or compressed travelling to or from the island in order for the equipment on the receiving end to properly modulate the signal. Naomi’s hand-held unit is an example of a portable version of digital communicator not initially available when HANSO began operations on the island.

Eventually, a breakthrough was achieved and a successful worm-hole was created between an outside research facility and a station on the island. In theory, when such a time dilation is present, a successful worm hole will allow one to travel from a static reference in the outside time reference to any point along the time line of the island’s history of time dilation. Theoretically, the temporal shift would be limited back to the point at which the time dilation began. Although initially successful, the HANSO team found it impossible to control when in time the island portal would appear, how long it would remain open, nor where on the island it would appear. The Orchid video demonstrates the unpredictability of such tests.

In an attempt to increase the reliability of the worm-holes, a new experiment was conducted in the Swan station. Taking advantage of a particularly rich vein of magnetic rock over which the station had been constructed, the HANSO team attempted to create a box-in-a-box, so to speak. Using a large generator device of some sort, they attempted to create a second temporal reference inside the first one. The resulting recursive nature of this box-in-a-box yielded disastrous results that would later be referred to as “an incident.” The new temporal field expanded to encompass the entire island, causing the island and all who inhabit it to bi-locate into two separate time references. The interaction between these two newly separated temporal references caused unexpected results. Dr. Marvin Candle lost his right arm when he foolishly attempted to shake hands with himself.

In an attempt to short-circuit the magnetic field and stop the experiment, the team discovered that the generators were only capable of resetting the field, bringing it back to its beginning point in a loop. Rather than attempt to destroy the entire area, the decision was made to “make lemons out of lemonade” and study the time loop for what could be gained from it as a phenomenon. To automate the reset process, the determination was quickly made to adapt a current psychological experiment already taking place in the Swan by the Dharma Initiative. The Swan button was to be pushed every 108 minutes, and on every (corrected math here) 2400th press (108 days) the lockdown procedure was initiated and the magnetic field was actually reset. This resulted in a constant time-loop of basically six months. The other 2399 times the button was pressed nothing actually did happen…

We know that Radzinsky, Kelvin and Desmond regularly tricked the system in to forcing a lockdown to work on the blast door map. My theory is that they unknowingly began resetting the time loop to shorter periods than six months. By the time Oceanic 815 disintegrated above the island, the same six months had been repeated countless times, only more recently the loops had been shorter. The periodic supply drops were, in fact, the same drop being made over and over. When the time loop was prematurely reset during a forced lockdown, the drop time varied from its normal six-month interval.

For the new arrivals, the healing properties of the island took effect immediately. Fortunately, the strength of reaction required to abort a pregnancy had not built up yet, allowing women who had conceived off the island an opportunity to deliver at full term.

Events then continued as we witnessed it episode by episode until Desmond activated the fail-safe, destroying the experiment along with the generators and the Swan station. The activation of the fail-safe allowed for the controlled implosion of the Swan and, most importantly, returned the island back to its natural state: no longer in a time loop, but in a different (slower) time reference than the outside world.

Wait for it…

After the implosion, the sky above the island briefly turned purple. This was the result of the island moving forward in time (catching up, if you will) to such an extent that the natural light wave-lengths approaching the island were compressed in what is referred to as a “Blue-Shift.”

Discuss…

Key characters

Short Name	Full Name	Episodes	Theories
Desmond	Desmond David Hume	2.23, 3.17, 4.5	860

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
3.22	Through The Looking Glass	5-23-2007	Jack	1252
3.8	Flashes Before Your Eyes	2-14-2007	Penny	233
1.1	Pilot, Part 1	9-24-2004	Jack	366

Key events

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
Four Toed Statue		205
Oceanic Flight 815 crashes	1.1	587

Key locations

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
The blast door map	2.17	159
The Swan station	2.20, 2.23, 2.14, 2.17, 2.1, 2.2, 1.11, 3.3, 3.8	471

Comments