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‘Fountain of Youth’ is a metaphor for telomerase… Immortality is a natural phenomena of the Island. The Island immobilizes the telomeres, like cancer would, without the fatal effects…

— Edgar_Hallowax

*That which follows is the Ultimate Theory. Therefore, it has had to be compiled from many theories, not from just my own. I am gratefully aware that what follows is the result of group effort. As this is a group effort, please post anything that I have missed, suggestions, or corrections, and I will take them into account. The credits and acknowledgements are as follows:

Thank you, you-know-the-name, for your research on the Vile Vortices. Thank you, Jukin, for your exceptional theory on the rising and falling of the Island. Thank you, Solarchap, for your research on cancerous cells and immortality (you sure are the jester with the good ideas!). You all built details that now fit in the big picture!*

the ultimate theory

Part I: The Vile Vortices

To begin with, in episode 1:1 (The Pilot pt. 1), the Oceanic pilot says the following: “6 hours in. Our radio went out, no one could see us. We turned back to land in Fiji, by the time we hit turbulence we were 1000 miles off course. They’re looking for us in the wrong place.”

This statement would have to mean that the airliner crashed in the Pacific Ocean, near Fiji. Yet wouldn’t the pilot, let alone anyone else, have found it strange that the plane was flying in the hours of daylight, since the plane departed Sydney at GMT+10 (2:15 PM Sydney Local Time)?

Let us assume that the plane was moving at 500 miles per hour, give or take, the total time the plane was flying was 8 hours (6hrs. east en route for LA, and 2hrs. west towards Fiji). This is confirmed by the flight attendant named Cindy, who says the flight time towards Fiji was about 2 hours. This would mean it was 10.15 PM in Sydney, and about 12.15 AM around Fiji. So, the plane crashed at 12:25 AM, how come it was broad daylight?

Furthermore, none of the airplane passengers mentioned feeling plane turning around during the flight, though a plane turn-around is, actually, very noticeable.

Then, when they crash on the island, none of the survivors wonder about the abrupt change in daytime (i.e. afternoon to evening to night to afternoon again). That makes the only logical conclusion that they were flying all day. Therefore, the plane was always traveling west, chasing the light of day.

Oceanic Flight 815 crashes because Desmond fails to enter the numbers into the microcomputer on time. On the log printout of System Failures in the Station #3, the time stamp displays 4:16 PM Local Time, Sept., 22, 2004. This means that the Island is in the GMT+3 or +4 time zone, just off the east coast of Africa. So if the plane crashed near Fiji, how did it end up on the Island?

Yemi’s Nigerian beech-craft also crashed on the island. The beech-craft traveled from Nigeria towards the Sahara Desert, in a northwesterly direction, away from the coast of Africa. If the deducted location of the island is accurate (just south-east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean), then the beach craft, flying north-east, would be flying precisely in the opposite direction as the island, which was located southwest of it. Nothing was said about it turning around. So how did it end up on the Island?

So how does one explain all these unanswered questions? Are they flaws in the Lost show, or are they part of a bigger picture, one which is blurry now, but will become clear later, in which these phenomena are subtle indicators of? The answer is the latter. These hardly noticeable incidents are details in an unseen picture. Part of that larger picture is the pseudoscientific theory of Vile Vortices— twelve Devil’s Graveyard areas distributed evenly around the globe. To see the locations of these, go to: http://www.deepinfo.com/WorldGrid.htm, which provides a map of 10 of the triangular vortices. The two vortices not shown are located at the north and south poles. It will be helpful to have the aforementioned map as reference.

Here is how one explains these unanswered questions: The 12 Vile Vortices have the ability to teleport objects (ships, subs, planes, balloons, helicopters, or any other device) to the island. The island exists in a separate space-time continuum plane due to its natural Casimir effect. The true location of the island is in the Indian Ocean, in the Zimbabwe Structural Ruins vortex, southeast of Africa, just a few miles off of Madagascar, on the border of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The pilot of Flight 815 was a “hostile” working outside the island, and was part of a larger scheme to bring Jack Shepard and John Locke to the Island, as those two were the two that Benjamin Linus wanted (Shepard because he was a spinal surgeon, Locke because he was “special”). The Pilot flew the plane west over Australia skirting the northern coast instead of crossing over the mainland. He did this because going this way was the quickest way to get to the Island. The pilot was not, however, planning for the plane to crash. In season three, you learn that the Hostiles are building a runway, possibly a second. So, the pilot, bringing Shepard and Locke, had been planning to land on one of these runways, but the first system failure caused it to break and crash unexpectedly. Juliet did not no of this whole plan, because Benjamin Linus lied to her, although he himself had no idea it would crash. He was hoped that some would have survived, specifically John and Jack. So, he sent Ethan to investigate one crash, on the pretence of finding out if any were pregnant (Ethan didn’t know of the plan to bring John and Jack) and another to the other crash site.

Naomi said the wreckage of Oceanic 815 was found off the coast of Bali, which is north of Australia, and not in the Pacific Ocean! So how did it end up there? That doesn’t correspond with the Vile Vortex theory, or what the pilot said. Here’s how: the plane, going west of Australia, enters the vortex west of Australia (as opposed to the eastern one near Fiji), and is consequently transported to the island. Then, during the Swan system failure caused by Locke refusing to enter the numbers, and the electro magnetic implosion that was the result, the plane wreckage was thrown back into the vortex and subsequently teleported back to the vortex west of Australia, where search teams later discovered it, logically concluded that there were no survivors, and persisted to perform memorial services for the passengers. If that explanation is too hard to believe, here is a better one: Linus’ employees working outside the Island created a hoax so that the search teams would give up looking for the survivors, and chances of them discovering the island would lessen. It wouldn’t be too hard, since only unmanned subs can go down to those depths in the Ocean, and the public would be forced to believe the doctored imagery and film.

Yemi’s beech-craft was heading north towards the Sahara Desert, but it entered the Sahara vortex and was teleported to the Island, where it crashed. This explains how the plane ended up on the island also.

Other minor observations lend credibility to this theory. Desmond says the island is about 350 miles from Tahiti. Desmond believes the island is a week east of Fiji at 9 knots. Danielle Rousseau said they were 3 days out of Tahiti when they wrecked on the island. In the case of the Black Rock, according to traders on Papua New Guinea, the ship sailed away from port in an Easterly direction, rather than West to Africa. These 3 vessels could have ended up in the Fiji vortex, teleporting them to the island. So that makes all three correct in the location of something (the vortex) but actually, all three were teleported from the Fiji vortex to the Island.

The only way to track another vortex is from one. For example, the “listening station” funded by Penelope was at a very cold and snowy location. The three coldest places in the world are the two poles, which are both vortex sites, and the Himalayas, which is also a vortex site. This could also explain why Naomi’s satellite phone’s signal acquisition was coming from the western coast of the USA—a vortex lies off the coast. Furthermore, Juliet and Anthony Cooper could have arrived to the island via submarine through the vortex off the coast of Florida (a.k.a. the Bermuda Triangle).

But why was Cooper (a.k.a. Tom Sawyer) taken to the island? The answer is simpler than it would seem. Benjamin Linus has many employees working for him outside the island (i.e. the recruiters who brought Juliet to the island, researchers, the Pilot, etc…) and many in the medical field. When he crashed, he said one of the doctors smiled at him. This doctor was working for Benjamin Linus. Cooper had a fractured spine, but he was not dead. The Linus employee, after finding out he was Locke’s father “kidnapped” him, put him in a comma using multiple sedatives, fixed his spine while he was in a coma, and brought him to the Island in a submarine on Ben’s orders. Then, Linus told Locke that Cooper had magically appeared on the Island for a reason, thus lying. Cooper himself believed he was in hell, since what he could remember explained things no better (he remembered “dying”). Linus then proceeded to use Cooper as a way to embarrass Locke, and thus eliminate him as a threat. To his surprise, Locke brought his fathers dead body to him, therefore foiling his plan. Now Linus had no choice but to kill Locke, which he tried to do.

Now we have almost all unexplained happenings explained. But what about “the numbers”? When the numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) are reversed, (there have been numerous themes in Lost about mirrors or reversals, i.e. through the looking glass, reversal of fortune on the island etc…) they make the following sequence: 24 32 61 51 8 4.

Made into coordinates as 24 degrees, 32 minutes, 6.1 seconds South Latitude, and 51 degrees, 8 minutes, 4 seconds East Longitude, you get the exact location of the south African vortex; off the coast of Madagascar. To get proof that these coordinates form that location, go to Google maps where the coordinates have been plugged in to find a location at: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=24%C2%B032‘6.10%22S,+51%C2%B0+8‘4.00%22E&ie=UTF8&ll=-24.527135,50.976563&spn=135.391758,360&z=2&iwloc=addr&om=1

Incase you are not yet convinced, if the Island’s location is off the coast of Madagascar, just south of Reunion and Mauritius Islands (as shown in the map above), it will fall into the +4 GMT Time Zone. Oceanic 815 presumably crashed near Fiji, which is +12 GMT, exactly 8 hours apart! If they crashed on the island at 4.16 pm island time (in the Indian Ocean), it would be 12.16 am Sept 23 in Fiji, and 10.16 pm in Sydney (+10 GMT). If the plane departed at 2.15 pm, it would have been in the air for 8 hrs and 1 minute before it crashed (which makes the 8 hrs of flight time established in the canon).

Here is even more evidence: If the Indian Ocean location is correct, its closest neighbors would be the islands of Reunion and Mauritius. Looking both up, I discovered some interesting facts. -The islands are geographically similar to Hawaii. Together with Réunion and Rodriguez, Mauritius is part of the Mascarene Islands. This archipelago was formed in a series of undersea volcanic eruptions, as the African plate drifted over the Réunion hotspot. Mauritius and Rodriguez were formed 8-10 million years ago. They are no longer volcanically active, and the hotspot now rests under Réunion. -The local climate is tropical, modified by southeast trade winds; there is a warm, dry winter from May to November and a hot, wet, and humid summer from November to May. Cyclones affect the country during November-April. - The island is well known for its exceptional natural beauty; “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius”, as Mark Twain noted in Following the Equator. - Reunion Island was first discovered by the Portuguese, and later colonized by the French.

Also, using the US Naval Observatory’s Sunrise/Sunset calculator, and setting it to December 18 2004, with the coordinates 24 deg 32 min South and 51 deg 8 min East, gives a sunrise time of 5.42 am, consistent with the amount of daylight at 6 am in the episode DOC.

Furthermore, Naomi NEVER mentions the country/land her search and rescue team came from, only saying that she was stationed on a vessel 80 miles off-shore (The Brig). For all we know, her vessel could be as far away as the West Coast of the USA, hence the signal received by her phone.

And a further tidbit, remember how Ben told Michael to head out at an angle of 325 degrees to leave the island. If you reverse that for coming in, you’ll have to do so at an angle of 145 degrees. And guess what? That is a bearing of south-south-west, consistent with this theory.

Even more authentication is made by the Black Rock. It was a slave trading ship, and could very well have crashed on the Island during a storm while transporting slaves back up along the Greek trade-route (to see a chart of the Greek trade-routes, see the next part). To find out how the Black Rock got so far inland, see the next part.

As a final testimony, there is a tectonic plate cross-section exactly at the location where the Island would be according to the above theory. The two plates are moving away from each other. Plates moving in opposite directions often creates volcanic eruptions, thus explaining the volcano that erupted on the island long ago, and the creation of the island. This also makes the two mountain ranges stretching across the Island very plausible. If the volcano erupted due to this, than it would mean the Island was probably created around 10,000,000 years ago, about the same time as the Mascarene Islands, which were also created by a series of volcanic eruptions, which the Island could have been part of.

Part II: Atlantis and early Platonism

The Island is Atlantis. Here is how I have reached this conclusion: In Greek mythology, there were four-toed, one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. Many representations and statues were carved of them, and the story of the Cyclopes is one of the most well known. There is a great possibility that the remains of a giant statue with four toes on the island were an ancient Greek carving of a Cyclopes. This means that Greek culture was, at some time, known on the Island. The other alternative for that statue is that it is on of the legs of the Collosus of Rhodes, which supposedly lost a toe. The Collosus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was lost into the Ocean. It’s remains could be anywhere. The Collosus was also from Greek culture. It is known among historians that ancient Greek trade-routes ranged from eastern Asia all the way down to Raphta in southern Africa, near Madagascar (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PeriplusMap.jpg, which charts the known early Greek trade-routes). It is to be expected that there were at least a few trading ships that journeyed a little further south, off of the standard trading routes. If they did so, they probably discovered Madagascar. Since the Island is just south of Madagascar, it could also have been discovered.

According to Linus, the Hostiles were the original inhabitants of the Island. The Hostiles currently have a very advanced civilization, which includes a sonic barrier, a radio tower, several laboratories, an electromagnetic geo-dome, an underwater signal-jamming station, and many scientists studying things such as the Casimir Effect, natural electro-magnetism, radio-signals, zoology, advanced cancer and fertility research, etc… They are obviously way ahead of their time, especially since all of this was carried out (with the “help” of the Dharma Initiative) in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Atlanteans were highly civilized for their time, as written by the philosopher Plato, and even ahead of their time. Sounds a lot like the current Hostiles, right?

The shape of the Island is very similar to that of the supposed Atlantis (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AthanasiusKircher%27sAtlantis.gif), almost exact, and it may have changed over time with erosion, tectonic shifts, etc…

The land masses that make up the solid portions of the earth’s surface are part of tectonic plates that float on molten lava. The plates move at a usual rate somewhere in the range of 1/4 to 1 inch per year. The fact that the land masses move so much and rise and fall so frequently is the crux of my theory of the Island. The Island is rising from the sea at a rapid rate - far quicker than normal plate tectonics allow; this could be indirectly due to the Island’s natural Casimir effect. One of the most famous land masses to ever sink was Atlantis. So, if it was true that the Island is rising and sinking, it would mean it could very well be Atlantis. So how does one come to the conclusion that the Island is rising and falling? The Black Rock. It probably crashed on the island around the 16th Century, and since then has risen and sunk with the Island. At the time which Oceanic Flight 815 crashed, the Island was almost at it’s peak height, putting the Black Rock far above sea level.

Plato (who was Greek…) described Atlantis as an idealistic state located in the Atlantic Ocean. Given the Greek conception of the world at the time, the Atlantic was imagined to be the ocean surrounding the former known continents, meaning Africa and Eurasia. This means that Atlantis was not necessarily in the modern conception of the Atlantic, contradicting anyone who says it has to be in the current Atlantic Ocean. In his description of Atlantis its landscape, nature and metropolis are incomparably beautiful and the culture is very advanced in technology, due to an unusually well educated population. Remind you of any particular Island?

According to Plato Atlantis was said to have a great power source at its center. Linus referred to a power source. Black smoke? Jacob? Also, the Island of Atlantis (or Atlas Island “Insula Atlantis”) supposedly had a temple in the center (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atlantis_picture.jpg). Linus mentioned a temple on the Island.

Part III: Fertility, Cancer and Immortality: Phenomena of the Island?

We all know that there are many mysteries shrouding the Island (which from now on I will refer to as Atlantis, see the Part II), that, hopefully all will be resolved in this super-theory. -One strange phenomenon in which cancer is cured on the Atlantis (I know Ben got a tumor, I’ll come back to that). -Also, at least one person does not age (Richard Alpert) -Women seem to die without proper medication when pregnant. -Male sperm production doubles.

Cancer is the quintessential disease of ageing; the prime risk factor for cancer is indeed age. (Cancer can and does occur in young children [mainly as a leukemia form] and adolescents, but it is rare when considered in terms of population numbers). Also genomes or genes which kill children young are not likely to be passed on to the next generation.

The reason we age is due to telomeres. A chromosome is like a shoelace, with all the genetic information stored in the lace bit, and the two little plastic bits, at the ends of the shoelace are the telomeres.

Every time the chromosome copies itself, a little bit of the telomere is left off and as we get older year by year, the telomeres get shorter and shorter. So the lace bit always stays the same but the plastic ends get shorter.

In 80 year old people, telomeres are on average five eighths as long as when at birth (see American Journal of Human Genetics 55: pages 876-882 Slagboom et al).

The actual enzyme telomerase is a genuine scientific curiosity as it bears a striking resemblance to reverse-transcriptase, an enzyme allowing viruses to “cut and paste” their genes into other organisms including us, as is with the case with HIV.

Research is going on now investigating whether this enzyme is the actual ancestor of all retroviruses and transposons (the original creator of RNA to DNA transcription) and it apparently seems that telomerase has been around since the dawn of life.

Now, in the normal ageing process, all our telomeres shorten (on average) at the rate of about 31 letters (or nucleotides) a year (and more in certain tissues). This is why cells grow old and cease to work after a certain age. From the moment chromosomes start dividing think of telomeres as a kind of stopwatch, shortening after fixed periods of time

Any cells which undergo damage need repair and this is a costly business, telomere wise, so whilst age is the prime factor, environmental factors, i.e. smoking, sunburn, ultraviolet and radioactive exposure, etc… also matter because a smokers lungs suffer constant damage and require constant repair as does skin when burnt, which uses up telomere length and thus makes the cells telomeres ‘older’ than they should be, this works the same with the other factors (i.e. if exposed to radiation, the skin needs to repair skin cells constantly, causing quicker shortening of the telomeres).

Cancer actively needs telomerase to sustain itself, and with telomerase in a tumor comes literal biochemical immortality and youth.

The most famous immortal cell line still replicating today came from a cancer patient called Henrietta Lacks a woman who died in Baltimore in 1951. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks) The city of Atlanta actually recognizes October 11th as Henrietta Lacks day.

Telomerase behaves like the elixir of eternal life for cells and this is well known and documented. An American company called the “Geron Corp.” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geron_Corp.) hit headlines in 1997 for cloning part of telomerase and went on to immortalize many different cell types which lacked telomerase. Nematode worms strains have been bred which in comparative human terms, means they would be approx 350 years old. ‘Methuselah’ fruit flies have been bred that live for 120 days (twice as long as wild types).

There is a paradox to cancer and here it is: shortened telomere length means higher cancer risk, yet telomerase which keeps telomeres longer is necessary for a tumor!

Also the reason that genes do not lose bits of their ends in egg and sperm cells is due to the presence of telomerase whose job is to repair the frayed chromosome ends and re-lengthening them. Researchers are currently investigating the connection between the dawn of life, and telomerase.

Fountain of Youth could definitely be a metaphor for telomerase (Plato could have heard of Atlantis’ natural cure to aging, and attributed it the island’s natural water sources), cancer tumors (a disease in the genes, don’t forget this) have evolved to switch off the telomere countdown, and if it wasn’t for killing their host they would literally live for ever, in fact some do live forever through immortal lines like HeLa)

So what if Atlantis, with it’s “unique properties” biologically neutralizes the telomerase, like a cancer tumor, only minus the fatal effect?

This would mean that any tumor on anyone coming to Atlantis would have it’s telomerase genes switched back off, literally starving the tumor of what it needs to exist in the first place, hence Rose healing.

Also, the telomerase in the developing embryo is also neutralized but in the embryo (just like the tumor) it’s highly necessary otherwise the genes themselves would lose their ends (remember the shoe-lace analogy) and a cumulative process begins where the information to grow and develop is lost as every time the cell divides it loses more and more of the genes which tell it how, where and when to grow, and thus the child dies.

Also, wasn’t there something in the Lost experience about an orangutan called Joop, and a life extension project?

There is another gene called TP53 (a.k.a. P53) which has the superb name of ‘Guardian of the Genome’, it’s job primarily being to tell cells to commit suicide for the greater good of the body. It is the main anti-cancer defense that we have. It is no coincidence that the majority of cancers correlate with a broken TP53 gene.

“So why did Linus develop a tumor if his telomerase was neutralized?”, you may be wondering.

Well, here is the answer: because his TP53 is broken, which is a completely natural, scientifically simple, and plausible explanation.

Now you may be wondering, “So why is his broken, and no-one else’s?”

Here’s how: he does not have a communion with “Atlantis”, (unlike Locke, which, let’s not forget, allowed a man with a snapped back to walk) and lets face it, he gives the Island nothing yet takes, takes, takes. Linus is a greedy, unreliable, immoral, man. All the Atlanteans who healed, if I am not mistaken, have done it quickly (which reminds me of Mikhail’s statement, “[Healing] works differently here…”, yet Linus took time to recover from his spinal surgery, in fact he still was using a walking stick at the last episode.

I also noticed, concerning Alpert, that the day of the Purge, when he removed his gas mask, he did it very hesitantly. So he doesn’t age, yet he is wary of physical harm. That makes sense, since there are other factors to death other than old age.

Finally, there is something to the fact that cloned animals, which have all suffered from telomere loss in the nucleus as a result of the cloning process, die younger. (see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Telomeres.html)

*Post Scriptum

If anyone finds mysteries that are left unexplained in this theory, please post them. If anyone thinks another “Part” should be added, please post the topic of that Part, and why it should be added. Please post any questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions. If you wish to have your own theory included in the Ultimate Theory, than please just post that, and direct me to it. I will do my best to adapt it to the rest.

Thank You, Namaste & Good Luck.*

Key characters

Short Name	Full Name	Episodes	Theories
Cindy	Cindy the Flight Attendant	2.7	103
Desmond	Desmond David Hume	2.23, 3.17, 4.5	860
Jack	Jack Shephard	1.1, 1.5, 2.11, 1.11, 1.16, 1.20, 3.9, 3.22, 3.1, 4.10, 4.12, & 3” href=”/episodes/theres-no-place-home-parts-2-3/”>4.13	1460
John	John Locke	3.3, 2.17, 1.4, 1.19, 3.13, 3.19, 4.11, & 3” href=”/episodes/theres-no-place-home-parts-2-3/”>4.13	1248
Rose	Rose Nadler	2.19	154

Key episodes

#	Title	Aired	Central character	Theories
1.20	Do No Harm	4-6-2005	Jack	70

Key events

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
Claire is captured	2.15	145
Four Toed Statue		205
Locke Can Walk		289
Revealing of the blast door map	2.17	136
Sun becomes pregnant	2.16	156

Key locations

Theme	Relevant Episodes	Theories
The blast door map	2.17	159
The crashed Nigerian plane	1.19, 3.5, 1.21, 1.24, 2.10, 2.21, 3.14	156
The Flame Station	2.23, 3.5, 3.16, 3.11, 2.17	220
Heny Gale’s Balloon	2.17, 2.16, 2.14	135

Similar theories

Title	Author	Cmnts	Votes	Rating
Dharma logo represents the LOST city of Atlantis	imlost_drag_tr	6	4	+4

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