The Island/Theories

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Theories about The Island

Main Discussion

Theories may be removed if ...

Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc). More appropriate for another article. Illogical or previously disproven. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article. Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments. Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead). This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory. Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response. See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

Contents 1 Invisibility 2 Inhabitants 3 Location 3.1 Using the Numbers 3.2 Miscellaneous locations 3.3 Fan-made maps 4 Tides 5 Miscellaneous theories 5.1 Vile Vortices 5.2 Underground tunnels 5.3 Healing Properties 5.4 Theories about the function of The Island 6 Possible cultural references 7 Footnotes

Invisibility

• The Island Is hidden from radar/satellite photography by a magnetic field, such as the one generated in the Swan.
• The Island can only be exited via a specific porthole in the magnetic field. (Bearing 325)
• The Island loses its cloak during system failures.
• The Island permanently lost its cloak due to the Discharge.
• The Island is located in its own parallel universe. Every time people come to the Island, they pass the border between the normal universe and the Island's universe. Since in Alice in Wonderland "The Looking Glass" is a metaphor for mirrors, the term in Lost is a metaphor for the border between the two universes.
• The island is invisible not because of the DHARMA Initiative projects, but because the Island originally already had it.
• The Island is miniaturized. The submarine resembles the one used in the movie "The Fantastic Voyage." Traveling to and from the island requires people and objects to be miniaturized and then re-sized to normal.
• Just as time moves at a different rate from the rest of the world, it is also on a different reference frame in relation to the perception of space. When viewed from the normal world (those not near the island), it appears much smaller than it does to those on or close to the island.

See also: Electromagnetism/Theories

Inhabitants

• As we have seen in some past episodes the DHARMA Initiative wasn't the first one to live in the Island, as we have seen there were some other inhabitants(hostiles)one example of these is Richard Alpert.
• The Island was created to be a political and religious Utopia for The Others, the DHARMA Initiative tried to create a scientific Utopia among other things, which led to hostility between them and the Others.
• Another civilization live on the Island before The Hostiles, possibly Aliens.

Location

Using the Numbers

The Numbers can be used to deduce the location of the Island:

Coordinates	Reasoning
4.81500, 162.342000 (Google map)	Notice an island very close to the coordinates. Is in the South Pacific, very close to the projected flight path of a plane flying from Sydney International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. Puts the plane about 900 miles away from the location it presumably lost radio contact. This corresponds with the pilot's statement that the plane was 1,000 miles off course.[pilot]
16.2342S, 158.4000W (Google map)	Matches with the flight path being 1000 miles off course.[pilot] Lies between Fiji and Tahiti, about 1500 miles East of Fiji and about 600 miles West of Tahiti. This is consistent with Rousseau's and Desmond's comments: three days out of Tahiti[rousseau] and one week from Fiji[desmond].
4.815160, 2.342000 (Google map)	Close to Nigeria and explains how the drug smuggler's plane reached the island.

See also: The Numbers/Theories

Miscellaneous locations

• If Desmond is right, the Island is about 350 miles from Tahiti. Desmond believes the island is a week east of Fiji at 9 knots.^[desmond] That's about 1500 nautical miles (2880km, 1740mi) east of Fiji (at 18.06°S / 178.30°E), which would place the island at about 18.06°S / 154.633°W (or perhaps further west). This is about 350 miles from Tahiti. Danielle Rousseau said they were 3 days out of Tahiti when they wrecked on the island,^[rousseau] which would mean they traveled at about 5 knots, which is plausible.
• The Island is north of Fiji. This is compatible with the flight path of Oceanic 815, based upon statements of the pilot^[pilot] and flight attendant^[cindy].
  • If the island is a kind of snowglobe and there is only one exit/entrance then if the plane entered it at one heading it would constantly go around in a circle. So this would mean that the pilot was telling the truth but just going around in a circle.
• The Nigerian plane, and the local time of 04:16pm from the log printout suggests that the Island is in the GMT+3 time zone, off the east coast of Africa.
• An interpretation of Eko's stick suggests the Island is near the south pole. Though the full GEN 13:14 verse states all four cardinal directions, the abbreviated version on the stick reads "LIFT UP YOUR EYES AND LOOK NORTH". The Island is near the South Pole, so all directions are North.
  • This makes little sense because the south pole is thousands of miles away and there are no tropical islands on the South Pole.
  • Lots of places have a "north". Pretty much anywhere but the North Pole.
• When Sayid repairs the satellite phone in The Brig, a display on screen shows a world map with green signal rings expanding out from a location very near the North American western coastline. Notably, this location is not a great distance from Portland, and is also nearly 1,000 miles from Los Angeles. This is the location of the island.
• The island could very well be on one of the poles. Geographically, the South makes more sense, but if it were the North, it would explain both the Polar Bear and the electromagnetic anomalies (as in, the island is literally above the exact location of the North Pole. Also, in one of the first season episodes, a shot of Walt's comic book shows an illustration of the top of a large sphererical shape that could easily be interpreted as the Earth.
• The Island is located some where in the North Pole/Arctic area. The Island exists in some sort of "alternate time thingy" or "alternate reality thingy." Google the book The Smokey God and/or the manuscript "Admiral Byrd's Secret Diary" (his trips were to the South Pole, but some theorists say he was also secretly sent on a mission to the North Pole) and/or "the Hollow Earth Theory, and/or Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole (1885), written by the founder of Boston University, Dr. William Fairfield Warren. These pseudo-science books make reference to a tropical land (or in the least, a warmer climate) hidden in the Artic. The writers of Lost have used these ideas to create the location of the Island. The writers have also incorporated another pseudo-scientific concept called The Vile Vortices. The Vile Vortices have been described as "portals." The Bermuda Triangle is considered as one of these portals. From the Island, different bearings would take you off of the Island from "zero" north to different Vile Vortice openings. That's how the Black Rock, Danielle's team, Flight 815, Eko's brother's plane, Desmond and his boat, Henry Gale and his balloon and others have ended up on the Island, through these vortices. That is also how the polar bear was transported from the Island to the location where it was found in North Africa. Also the hypothetical concept of Ley Lines may figure into the mythology of the Island's location. The only direct way to access the Island is going under the Arctic ice cap in a submarine, guided by a beacon from the Looking Glass, if you know the correct route. When you emerge from under the ice cap, you have entered this "lost" area, which is tropical in nature and somehow protected from the frozen environment around it. How the Island is invisible to the "outside" world is not readily explained in these books nor have the writers of Lost given us their "take" on this point (as of this posting). But numerous clues have been given to us by the writers of the series. Polars bears, references to "ho ho ho," Hurley drawing a picture of an igloo, the comic book with Arctic scenes that Walt was reading. Sam seeing the aurora borealis (even though he was in the Pacific) in Find 815, Penny's listening station was located in a snowy waste land, Desmond's fictitious basic training camp named "Camp Millar" in Scotland matches an actual base on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean which is owned by Norway, named Camp Millar, and has been used as the stepping-off point of many Arctic expeditions, The Swan password is the joke about what one snowman says to the other and Desmond's reference to a snow globe .
  • That would not explain how you can wear T-Shirts and grow tropical fruits on such island. The light would be different too, including a uncommon northern day/night cycle like in skandinavia.
    • Yes it would. Read my update in the leading paragraph above where I better explain the "Hollow Earth" pseudo-scientific concept of a lost land in the Artic.
      • That doesn't explain why they would be experiencing 24-hour day/night cycles. If they were anywhere near the Antarctic in late December (current Island time), it would not be getting dark at night. If they were near the Arctic, it'd be dark all day. None of the "polar" theories here hold up to this basic fact of astronomy.
        • My theory was in regards to the Island’s location, not to environmental issues. But to surmise a guess, I would say that the Island has a manufactured environment. Faraday (I believe) mentioned that light appeared to “scatter” strangely, compasses do not work correctly, rain seems to start up very suddenly with no indication of an approaching storm, there seems to be some sort of a perpetual weather front surrounding the Island, the unusual rising tide (Sayid says... "This can't be normal. The tide shifting so suddenly. Rising in so short a time.") and with a little research, I probably could find a lot more examples. Considering all of the other strange events on the Island, it is possible that we could consider the Island to be a totally controlled laboratory in itself.
          • Addendum to my "North Pole" location above. Some other northern location clues. The Big Dipper could be seen in the episode "The Long Con" when Sayid and Hurley are using the radio to pick up a WXO radio station. On the Letyourcompassguideyou.com website (part of The Lost Experience), there is a postcard of an island beach with a snowman.
            • Additional addendum to my "North Pole" location above. In the "Constant" episode, you can see snowflakes hitting the window of the helicopter while they are navigating through the storm front (thanks to a observant user comment on The Fuselage). And in the episode "The Shape of Things to Come," in a flash forward, Ben has left the Island and "appeared" in a desert in North Africa wearing a parka. This is not only another Artic location clue, it may also indicate that sometime in the future (in the story), something has gone wrong and the Artic environment has started to take over the Island's tropical conditions.

The Straight Line Theory:

• Given that there are "special locations on the Earth" connected with the show... An experiment seemed necessary. Check this out. You can draw a straight line around the globe and it will pass directly through:

Medenine, Tunisia (where the Polar Bear was found by Charlotte) Uluru, Australia (refer to Isaac, and mentioned as another 'special place' according to Cuse and Lidelof)... Sri Lanka (refer to Sri Lanka video) the area near the Sunda Trench ("faked" crash site) And the GALAPAGOS ISLANDS - No direct connection on the show, but the connection will be revealed soon.

Could all of these specific locations be lined up strictly by coincidence? You decide.

• • One of the properties of the island is the ability to transport things to or from the island to special locations. With all of the high-level physics that would be involved, it makes sense that this would somehow theoretically create a conduit or tunnel around the globe in a straight line. Also, in order to explain the polar bear, it may end up that there is a second conduit through a second set of locations (such as the south pole (polar bear)).
    • The Point of intersection will be the location of the ISLAND.
    • There are no polar bears anywhere near the South Pole; they are only found near the North Pole, where they live on the tundra and what's left of the Arctic ice cap.
• To further add to the Straight Line Theory, it should be noted that if you go in a straight line through the earth (antipode) from roughly where Ben woke up in Tunisia (Sahara Desert) to the other side of the world, the location you find is further south from the plane's original course, and is about 1000 miles off course (which the pilot mentioned). As we have no exact reference to where Ben woke up, it is not exact, but the rough coordinates are: Latitude: 30°22'22.351 S Longitude: 170°41'0.937 W. So this may be the actual location of the island.

Fan-made maps

Map	Explanation
	Possible flight paths of Oceanic 815 turning back to Fiji. The red shows the possible location of the island at 4.815' N and 162.342' W. The yellow line shows a possible original flightpath for the plane. The green lines show possible turnaround routes to Fiji after radio contact was lost.
	Possible location of island according to Desmond.[desmond]
	Probable location of the island according to Seth Norris[pilot], Desmond[Desmond] and Rousseau[Rousseau].
	Estimated flight path relative to equator and International Date Line, according to the pilot[pilot] and flight attendant[cindy].

See also: Flight path of Oceanic 815 and Flight path of Oceanic 815/Theories

Tides

• Tides could have been controlled from The Looking Glass station along with communication.
• Desmond's sailboat being pulled offcourse could be due to strong tides or unusual currents carrying the boat back to the island
• Global tides are caused by the gravitational pull from the moon. Magnetism in general is well known to defy the laws of gravity. If there is an enchanced magnetic field surrounding the island, it could be blocking the moon's gravitational pull from pulling the water. The abnormaly high tide that swept out the plane may have been caused by the reintroduction of normal gravitation to the region due to a temporary disruption that may have been associated with a system failure.
  • However, the island would have to be immune to the restrictions put out by normal space-time for this theory to really come into place.
  • The somewhat unpredictable tides may signal that the magnetic field is unstable.
  • Water is diamagnetic. The field strength of magnetism required to move it will be huge.

Miscellaneous theories

• The island is a temporary "Purgatory" where souls remain before moving on.--Pamelita 05:12, 4 May 2008 (PDT)
• The island used to be part of Pangea, and is actually the area known as the Biblical Garden of Eden, hence "Adam and Eve."--Pamelita 05:12, 4 May 2008 (PDT)
• In many cultures, volcanoes were/are thought to be gateways to Hell. Volcanoes Mount Solfatara in Italy and Mount Hekla in Iceland were considered two of the main gateways to the underworld.
  • Part of the Dharma Initiative was to figure out how to stop the active volcano from destroying the Island, hence the emphasis on volcanoes in the classroom scene of The Man Behind the Curtain.
• The sulphuric smell of the shower water is caused by either a still active volcano on the Island or hot springs
• On the map found among Rousseau's Maps and Notes there's a scale of length. If it's in kilometers (which is likely, since Rousseau is French), then the Island is nearly 240 km (160 miles) along the side portrayed.
• Alvar Hanso chose this island for his foundation knowing that his grandfathers ship, The Black Rock, had crashed there. The Blast door map shows the Black Rock as the resting place of Magnus Hanso.
• The island prevents its inhabitants' dying from natural causes. They can only die from trauma like Boone, Shannon, Ana-Lucia, Libby, Roger, Yemi, Bea, Ethan, Edward Mars etc. This explains why Rose is not dying. Whatever Jack thought about Ben's life being in danger, Ben was only fearful of disability.
• The Island is several miles underground, which explains why people are brought there by submarines, and why it is hidden from the outside world. The environment is simulated.
  • Could explain the way rain seems to come and go at whim on the island.
• All the fruit on the Island, due in part to the strong Electromagnetism at the location, or with the Incident, is hallucinogenic, causing those living on the island to have mysterious dreams, visions and even flashbacks.
• The Island is a giant box as in the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, where multiple inconsistent realities can coexist in a closed system until observation from the outside. DHARMA used this property to allow them to try multiple options simultaneously to address the Valenzetti Equation. Contact was only to be made with the outside world from a result that was successful, thus making a successful reality the only reality.
• The island is in limbo(between time and space, light and dark,etc.)
• The Coordinates (4.815,162.342) are close to the Bikini Atoll (11°35′N 165°23′E); where multiple WMD bomb tests were performed in the 40's and 50's.
• During the Writer's Strike, Carlton Cuse held a sign that said "Do you want to know what the Island is?" So if that came from one of the show's executive producers, then is he hinting that the Island isn't actually an island?
• The island is a game put on by Mr. Widmore; he chooses 48 people and puts them on the island to play through the story. Other very rich people gather together to watch and bet on the outcomes for each character. The whispers are the spectators' comments to each other, discussing the game as they watch it play out. Mr. Paik lost his shirt on the last game so he had to put up his daughter and her husband for his debt. Same thing with Christian Shepherd, but he made too much trouble and ended up dead in the game.
  • This could explain many coincidental meetings of characters off the island.
• The Island could be understood as being a parallel reality. The numbers represent the access points that communicate both realities and only Ben knows this. Whereas in the reality of the Island 48 passengers survived the crash, in the real world there were no survivors and are buried in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
• In Daniel Faraday's notebook there is a diagram of spacetime, with one of the axis with a label "imaginary space". The other axis is labelled "real time". The space-time vector shown on the map suggests that time dilates with progression into imaginary space, meaning people experience time-distorting effects travelling to or from the island, because it exists in imaginary space. Perhaps in this case imaginay space is like imaginary numbers, i.e. it is stuff that exists in spacial dimensions at right angles to normal space, which is why it can't been seen from outisde, because in the normal spacial dimensions it doesn't exist. Or perhaps the writers have gone for a more literal meaning of "imaginary", and the island really only exists in the minds of those that live there.
• The Island is an organic machine created in the future before humankind became extinct according to the dictates of the Valenzetti Equation. It was sent back in time with a group of 'Hostiles' to recruit present day people to help undo the coming extinction. The reason time is distorted around it is because it has a different gravitational constant than the earth itself and thus 'bends' time around it.
• The Island is located in the future. That is why people can order things from the rest of the world and have it delivered immediately, or the doctor from the boat is found on the Island before he's killed on the boat.

Vile Vortices

The Island is a central dumping ground for the global network of Bermuda Triangle-like areas known as the Twelve Vile Vortices:

• Flight 815 fell victim to the Fiji Vortice.
• The Black Rock fell victim to the Mozambique Channel Vortice.
• The Nigerian Beechcraft fell victim to the Sahara Vortice.

See main article: Vile Vortices (theory)

Underground tunnels

The Island is riddled with a system of underground tunnels.

• This is where the "Monster" was dragging Locke in "Exodus, Part 2".
• The Others use underground tunnels to travel without leaving tracks.
• Cindy quickly disappeared into an underground tunnel in "Abandoned".
• These tunnels are filled with machinery, which produce some of the noises heard when the "Monster" is moving about.
• A big complex, like a city, is hidden underground. This can explain the notes about Cerberus in blast door map, and the translation of countdown hieroglyphs.
• This is supported by the DHARMA Cabling Map, which shows many tunnels going underneath the barracks.

See main article: Tunnels

Healing Properties

• The Island has the ability to turn on and off its healing powers. In "Deus Ex Machina" it took Locke's ability to walk for a short while so that only Boone would climb to the plane. After the plane fell and Boone was killed, Locke's ability to walk returned.
  • The fail-safe incident may have put an end to these powers. Which means that Locke may eventually revert to a state of paraplegia, and Rose may die of cancer.

• On the island, people are not only healed physically, but also psychologically, which is relevant for a few of the Losties. Charlie manages to get the self-control to overcome his heroin addition ("The Moth"). On the island, Hugo was generally fine without heavy medication until his relationship with Libby was about to begin and the temporary stress of his personal insecurities caused a momentary relapse. A short while after he leaves ("I was happy too for a while" he tells Jack in "Something Nice Back Home"), Hugo starts hallucinating a best friend again, this time, Charlie as opposed to Dave and ends up back in Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute. Likewise, on the island Jack is kept busy with one crisis after another, as Sarah and he himself mentions several times, Jack is most comfortable when there is a problem to fix ("Man of Science, Man of Faith"). This is why Ben knows that Jack will one day wish to return to the island ("King of the Castle"). After he gets back to the outside world, Jack's issues reemerge. He and Kate become a couple after leaving the island (Something Nice Back Home), she now a single mother, and Jack steps in to be the dad. But Jack's grief about his father's death returns; he thinks he sees Christian in St. Sebastian Hospital ("Something Nice Back Home"), where they used to work together ("All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues"). In response, Jack starts taking medication (which he later abuses "Through the Looking Glass"), and restarts the binge drinking he began before flight 815 in the bar where he met Ana Lucia ("Pilot, Part 1"). In the end, he recreates the issues from his last relationship. Jack accuses Kate of being unfaithful to him (Something Nice Back Home), just like he accused Sarah of cheating on him with Christian ("Pilot, Part 1"). Later it is implied that he has been repeatedly calling Kate against her wishes ("Through the Looking Glass") like he stalked Sarah in a previous episode. He continues his downhill slide, becoming suicidal ("Through the Looking Glass"). But ultimately, the island may take him back after all - preventing him from killing himself by presenting a fiery car crash and another chance to fix something, just like it did for Michael ("Meet Kevin Johnson").

See also: Healing properties/Theories

Theories about the function of The Island

• In the May 23, 2007 special "Lost: The Answers," producers Cuse and Lindelof commented on the nature of the magic box metaphor, stating that "the entire island is a magic box." We can thereby conclude that the island makes some people confront their most painful and repressed memories through the materialization of complex human constructs that to them appear real. Those affected by the unique properties of the island see characters from their past that they have hurt and need to see again. So when Jack sees his late father appear on the island he believes that it really is him and not a hallucination. He believes it because he wants to, since his highest wish is to see his father again so that he can have closure. Jack knows that Christian Shepherd can't be on the island, yet talks to him as if he really is there. The same can be said about Eko in his conversation with his dead brother and about Ben meeting his mother who died giving birth to him. By this rationale, Jacob is a metaphorical demon from Ben's past that haunts him and won't give him any peace until he redeems himself. That is why only he can see him, just like only Hurley could see Dave. Paralleling how Yemi was a materialization of Eko's subconscious guilt and a chance for the older brother to atone for his sins, Jacob is someone from Ben's past that he has to confront - possibly because Jacob is dead and Ben has his life on his conscience. (This plot device has been used in several science fiction novels, most prominently and memorably in Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.)

• The Island is shielded by an electro-magnetic field (or something with very similar properties): Naomi (s. 3, ep. 17) said (ep. 19) that she knew a crash was imminent because the helicopter controls "started going crazy." This was brought up in season 2: Desmond realizes that he neglected to push the button at the same time that the plane crashed on the island. An electro-magnetic type of shield - albeit, above the water's surface - explains why a submarine is required to reach the island. Although, in season 2, Michael and Walt were given a boat to leave, there was no promise of them getting very far.
  • The building that housed the communication devices, where Ben showed Juliet supposedly-live footage of her sister, controls the shield, allowing communication with satellites at specific times. The shield also allows inter-island radio communication, but block transmissions off the island.
  • Electronic devices can experience severe transients in their electrical systems if turned on and exposed to a strong enough electro-magnetic field. Devices that were turned off can still work, at least to some degree.
  • The Island's field is generated from multiple spots, explaining the tearing of the plane.

• The Earth itself is a living organism, comprising all geological, chemical, and biological features, including the humans that infest its surface. The Island is the active center of the Earth's "brain," with a built-in security system and signature electromagnetic "brain wave" activity.

• The Island is a prison for some sort of non-corporeal entity. In order to escape its bonds, the entity requires a human host, but not everyone is compatible. Exactly what makes a host compatible is a mystery even to the entity, but it favors a theory that it needs a tabula rasa. Since ancient times, the entity has used a slight psychic influence that it can project over long distances to lure people to the Island, occasionally in large groups. The four-toed statue is an artifact of one group, the Black Rock of another. Adam and Eve and Henry Gale are examples of smaller-scale applications. The DHARMA Initiative were drawn to the Island in like manner but frustrated the entity by not being compatible themselves and not breeding, so either it (A) destroyed most of them itself or (B) set the Others, another group whose origins we simply haven't seen yet, against the DHARMA members. When the Others frustrated it similarly by birthing their (motherless) children behind DHARMA's sonic shield, where its Smoke Monster right hand can't snatch them at the crucial moment, the entity brought in Desmond to complete its loooooong-term plan to bring together all the best candidates for parenting its ideal host from around the world. Ergo, the Losties.

• The Island represents God, who is in the process of saving the survivors by drawing them to itself and "sanctifying" them.

• The Island gives you what you want in one way or another. Locke had his paralysis cured because he wanted to walk, Jin wanted a child so he was able to father one, Hurley wanted food so the island dropped more, and Charlie wanted drugs so he found a plane full of them.
  • These are produced by the Magic box.
  • The Island itself was produced by the Magic box.
    • The people who came to the island were looking for a place where they could be away from their problems, (whether they knew that or not) because of that, the Island was created.

• The Island forces those upon it to confront themselves, their sins, and perhaps their pasts in general. Once they have come to terms with these things, they are removed from it. Boone comes to terms with his feelings about Shannon and dies (a sacrifice to the Island, according to Locke); Shannon comes to terms with her feelings of uselessness, and dies; Ana-Lucia comes to terms with her guilt over Jason and is killed; Michael realizes how much he cares about his son while Walt realizes how much he cares about his father, and both escape the Island; Eko states defiantly that he does not repent for his past evils, and is killed (by the Monster, incidentally). Kate, in 'settling down' with Sawyer, has marked herself for death; this can be extended to several other characters.

• The Island is the Fountain of Youth. This is why Richard Alpert doesn't age, the island has healing properties, etc.
  • The fountain of youth theory could also explain the death of all pregnant woman on the island; the inability to successfully reproduce might be a consequence of the "curse" of living forever.

• It is significant that the Island is located somewhere near the International Date Line as this would mean its time zone would be twelve hours from Greenwich Mean Time, half a day from Universal Time (the time used by scientists as the planet Earth's official time). This could also be significant because the plane crashed on the day of the autumnal equinox, when the Sun is directly over the equator and day and night are of equal length. The autumnal equinox is extremely important in many of the world's ancient and modern spiritual traditions and reflects the black and white, good and evil, and light and dark themes of Lost. In astrology, the autumnal equinox marks the beginning of the sign Libra, a sign whose themes include harmony, relationships, beauty, art, money, and balance.

• Everything on the island is marked as a Black or White piece in the style of Backgammon or Chess. Every "Black" or "Yin" action has an opposite "White" or "Yang" reaction on the island, meaning everything that happens on the island happens for a reason, so that something else may happen as a consequence of that action at a later point.

• The island is some kind of "Garden of Eden." This would explain...
  • The healing properties of the island, and why there is no cancer
  • Why the island is "invisible" to the outside world
  • The statue with four toes... because this would would to evolution
  • The Hostiles not getting older
    • In the Book of Genesis, it is written that after God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, he sent an angel to guard it. This angel could be the smoke monster or Jacob.
    • Locke makes a reference to Adam and Eve when he discovers the skeletal remains of a man and a woman in the caves in season 1.
    • Perhaps the island is not invisible to the outside world, but was declared a secret project by the governments of many different countries, and the DHARMA Initiative came to the island to study it due to the possibility of it being the lost Garden of Eden.
    • (Perhaps) the inability to bear children. According to the Genesis accounts, Adam and Eve did not begin to have children until after their expulsion from Eden.

• The Island is some kind of a modern Atlantis. Atlantis is a lost civilization that the philosopher Plato describes in some of his works. It was supposedly millennia ahead of its time and sank after a massive earthquake following its loss in the war with Athens.

Francis Bacon will later reuse the concept in his book "The New Atlantis". In this book, The New Atlantis is supposed to be an island situated in the North Pacific, where ended a bunch of Europeans in order to build a new, ideal society. This ideal society would be based on technology and science in order to lead mankind to Good and Salvation. The idea is therefore to create some kind of new humanist religion based on technology and science. This is very similar to The Dharma Initiative project and to Ben's vision (cf. his allegeance to Jacob and his desperate will to find a way to create life on the island).

• • In a more occult way of thinking, Atlantis is a legendary island which possess the true knowledge of man's beginnings, and is the home of all knowledge and all civilization. The only way to find this Island, according to Francis Bacon, is by The Lost Speech, a kind of language that gives form to the invisible, the unexplainable. The Lost Speech holds the secret of the world and results from an existential quest. But this language has been lost because our own inner darkness obscures it. To know The Lost Speech is to penetrate the inner Heart of Creation, which may be the Atlantis, or the secrets that the Island has to offer. By an existential quest, that their situation on the Island force them to follow, the Lost characters may discover the mysteries of the Island, which contains the knowledge of the man's begginings.
  • Taking this argument from the other side, it could be that the writers are suggesting that legends of Atlantis in fact grew out of anecdotes and myths surrounding this island. It's possible that the island and it's original inhabitants did indeed predate much of modern civilization and were highly advanced. And over time, they opted to withdraw from the world around them, and let their achievements fade into legend.

• The Island is infact an entity in itself, with a counsiousness and control over itself i.e. healing powers, electro-magnetic field, possibly the monster.

• The Island is a gateway into a parallel universe. Desond Hume was stationed at Camp Millar, fictionally placed outside Edinburgh, this camp actually exists in the Arctic Circle, in a town called Svarlbad. In Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy the town of Svarlbad is a gateway between parallel universes. The gateway was formed as a result of the high levels of geo magnetism in the Island. Charles Widmore wishes to exploit this, Ben and the others, wish to keep the gateway closed. Due to Desmond Hume's exposure to the high levels of radiation/magnetism when the hatch exploded he "switches" between universes, which appears to us as Time Travel.

Possible cultural references

The Island borrows properties from some of these fictional, hypothetical, and real locations:

(Please note that proposed locations without a stated reason may be deleted).

Location	Reasoning
Alcatraz	The Hydra island is directly compared to Alcatraz in "Every Man for Himself".
Atlantis	Atlantis is a legendary island where hides the true knowledge of man's begginings and of all civilizations. It's also the where a new society full of knowledge and humanism raises. It can refer to The Dharma Initiative original purpose.
Avalon	Avalon relates to the many religious aspects of the show.
The Castle of Otranto	In this book, many events happen, that are similar to events that happen on Lost. The book deals with the Supernatural, as many characters see apparitions, visions and even Giant Stone limbs. The characters are horrified when they see them, although the apparitions themselves appear to have some motive, perhaps even a positive, moral one. The Supernatural is also in a way the main protagonist with the human characters either being guided or becoming a victim of it. In Lost, the Island is the main character and the losties and Others are affected in the same way as the characters in this book.
Delos	The references to Apollo who is the god of healing, relate the island to Delos. The Island seems to have the power of healing. Apollo was born on the island of Delos which at the time floated freely in the ocean and was difficult to reach because of swirling tides surrounding it.
Demiplane of Dread	Group of closed universes called domains of which The island may be one. Each is controled by a Dark Lord who can not leave his/her domain. Non Dark Lords may leave their domain but not the group of domains
Fantasy Island	The island is actually what is left over 20 years later from the show Fantasy Island (1978 - 1984) on ABC. The Others are there in a selfish attempt to steal the island's power. This is a simple explanation for all of the strange occurrences on Lost.
Galt's Gulch	In Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart is flying a small private plane over the secret location of Galt's Gulch, when an electromagnetic field causes her to crash there.
Hawaiki	Hawaiki is a mythological land (most often located in the Pacific Ocean) to which some Polynesian cultures trace their origins.
Land of Oz	See main article: The Wizard of Oz
Lemuria	A lost continent in the Pacific, similar to Atlantis. It would seem to be the most plausible of the lost continents, given its location. See article: Lemuria
Mu	A theoretical lost continent in the Pacific which sunk into the sea.
Myst	The island has many puzzles that are slowly revealed in the show, just as in the Myst series of games. The different DHARMA Initiative stations and other features are reminiscent of the subdivisions of worlds, realms, or islands found in these games.
The Mysterious Island	See main article: The Mysterious Island
Neverland	The island where Peter Pan and his Lost Boys live. A place where kids never grow old. Explains the mysterious "life extension project" of the Dharma Initiative. In Walt Disney's Peter Pan, there's a scene where a line of indians are carrying off the captured Lost Boys. The last indian in the line drags a teddy bear behind him on a rope, similar to the scene in "...And Found". Also, Neverland had a smaller island off from the main island where Tigerlily was held captive, similar to Hydra Island.
Nikumaroro (Gardner Island)	Possible crash site of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan whose remains were reported discovered there in the 1941 (Adam and Eve). The SS Norwich City, ran aground here much like Rousseau did. Site of final act of British colonial expansion and the establishment of an ‘ideal’ island community, later abandoned. The Polynesian goddess Nei Manganibuka can be encountering walking in the jungle.
Pala Island	An island utopian society founded on elements of western science and eastern mysticism. See article: Pala Ferry
R'lyeh	This lost city/island of H. P. Lovecraft is located in the South Pacific, has a monster (Cthulhu), and a cult reminiscent of the Others. Also, in the story The Call of Cthulhu, a boat disappears off of Australia, and the one survivor claims that six of his companions were killed on an island.
Rupes Nigra	Rupes Nigra (Black Rock) is a phantom island that has magnetic fields.
Shambhala	Also spelled Shambala, this mystical kingdom of Buddhist Tibetan tradition is said to be hidden somewhere in the Himalayas. However some western occult interpretations describe it as a 'Sacred Island' similar to Lemuria or Atlantis. Shambala can also mean "the dharma chakra, located in the heart of all beings. It is the symbol for mind, completing the trinity of body, speech, and mind." See A Definition of Shambala.
The Village (The Prisoner)	The Lost island and plot sometimes resembles that of the 1960's British TV show. Much like the Prisoner, Lost has a group of people imprisoned in an unknown location and they don't really know who is running the show. Location turns out to be a few miles from London.
The Island of Time	Some occurences make reference to Lost: Prince wakes up on the beach of the island after being attacked in the middle of the ocean (Oceanic Flight 815). He then finds portals that can travel through time (Time on the island). Prince is also being attacked by a beast, Dahaka (The monster).

Footnotes

• ^[Desmond] In "Live Together, Die Alone", Desmond says "I was sailing for two and half weeks, bearing due West and making 9 knots. I should have been in Fiji in less than a week."
• ^[Rousseau] In "Solitary", Rousseau says "Our vessel was 3 days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned."
• ^[Pilot] In "Pilot, Part 1", the pilot says "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."
• ^[Cindy] In "The Other 48 Days", Cindy says "Before the crash, the pilot said we'd lost communication; we were turning back. We were flying for two hours in the wrong direction. They don't know where to look."