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Time travel

• In "The Other Woman" episode, Harper was traveling in time and then appeared to Juliet, but before she was discussing with someone what should she say. After Jack appeared that someone told Harper they should go and she started to time travel again and for Juliet and Jack it seemed that she disappeared, but she was only moving "much faster" for them to see where she went.
• The whispers mark the activation of some kind of transportation device. Whenever the whispers are heard, somebody or something appears or disappears, seemingly without a trace. In the first few seasons, they always mark the appearance of the Others (who never seem to leave a trace). They are also heard when Jacob's cabin appears in front of Hurley. Most obviously, they are heard when Harper appears out of nowhere to Juliet, and again when she disappears. They also appear when young Ben's mother appears.
  • If so it's yet to be explained why the others choose to walk most of the time (to the temple, to intercept the 815s etc.)
    • Juliet does not seem to understand the whispers or know how Harper appeared so suddenly. Only some of the Others are privy to the secrets of transportation on the island. This may be why they send her with Kate to infiltrate the Losties, in case she manages to leave the island, she knows that much less. For this reason the Others as a group walk from place to place, to maintain the secret.

Parallel worlds

• The whispers are bleed-through of different versions of the same events in parallel worlds (hence they seem to comment on what is happening): The island is a nexis where all these worlds meet.
• 4th Dimention Theory [1]

The Monster

• The whispers are the collective consciousness of the dead, spoken by the Monster, which is death itself.

The Others

• The whispers are coming from the Others.
• The whispers are simply an Others tactic to intimidate people and create a sense of mystery. As Kelvin called them 'hostiles,' it's possible that the Others attacked DHARMA personnel in the past and adopted sort of war cries in the form of loud whispers.
• The survivors may be picking up stray thoughts from the Others evidence - transcripts show a discussion of the 'losties' goodness.
• The whispers may be the result of telepathic abilities possessed by the survivors or the Others.
• Rousseau claims that she has never seen The Others, but she heard them whisper. In Exodus she says that she heard The Others whispering "they were coming for the boy", which indeed they did, only it wasn't Aaron as she thought, but Walt. If Rousseau wasn't lying, this may be proof that The Others use the whispers as a mean of communication.

Counter-evidence:

• Unlikely, as Michael heard whispers on board the freighter, far from any of the Others.
• Juliet, who is familiar with the Others on the Island seems perplexed by the whispers.

Ghosts

• Sometimes when people have near death experiences they become more in tune to the supernatural or other side. This is shown when Charlotte Malkin tells Eko that she saw Yemi and he talked to her. It seems almost impossible that anyone even survived the flight at all. The whispers show that they might have all been in a place, like Charlotte, where they were in between life and death, the Island's healing powers kept those alive who were on the brink of death (think about Jack suddenly waking up in the jungle), and now those survivors are more in tune with the dead of the Island. This may also explain some of their visions of seeing people on the Island who have perished.
• The whispers are the voices of ghosts, including people who have died on the Island.
• Maybe the ghosts are able to somehow follow the person that caused their death, Duckett could have followed Sawyer to the Island.
• Maybe the whispers do not comment what is happening, but they reflect the thoughts of the people involved.
• After death, the Island liberates the consciousness of dead people.
• Note that the line "Death sucks" is the first line spoken by Boone in Shannon's "Abandoned" episode flashbacks. "It'll come back around" echos back to what Duckett said to Sawyer after he shot him. The whispers "Dying sucks...Hi sis...Here she comes, here she comes" almost begs one to think that Duckett and Boone are ghosts discussing what is transpiring with the living.
  • "It'll come back around" could refer to Ana Lucia, who shot and killed Shannon and ended up being shot and killed by Michael. It came back around.
• In Icelandic mythology, volcanoes were thought to be gateways to the underworld. Voices of the dead were said to be heard eminating from the volcanic Mount Hekla[2]. Perhaps the whispers eminate from the Island's volcano.
• The whispers seem to always being speaking about whoever is in the range of the whispers. They are always bouncing questions back and forth about that person(s). If it was the freighties, and others like Desmond, time traveling through consciousness, then it would make no sense that they are there, focused on the subject they are talking about. If Desmond was a whisperer because of his time distortion experiences he wouldn't be on the Island whispering, he would be in 1995 whispering about something from that time zone. There is no evidence that Desmond had any other conversations that were improperly placed while he was conscious traveling.
• The whispers may be replaying conversations that these 'ghosts' (those who have died in relation to the Island or someone who is on the Island) had in the past. Ex. Sara (Jack's ex-wife) is mentioned several times in the transcripts in reference to her affair, which Jack believed to be with his father, Christian. Nikki's name is also mentioned in the transcript and someone talks about Desmond.

Non-corporeal beings

• It is possible that the Whispers are non-corporeal beings, they have no physical form, or that they where once 'people' but where able to rid themselves of their bodies, gaining a type of immortality. This my also explain why some of them want to reveal themselves to the people on the Island, as they might be trying to get a sense of what their life had once been, back when they had bodies, or (if they've always been non-corporeal) it could be an attempt to understand the existence of the corporeal beings, people.

Misc.

• The whispers are part of the unseen "darker threat".
• Everytime you see something being said in German, think back to what Nathan said in "The Other 48 Days" episode, when the Others took a few men, as Nathan said, one was a German. This happened on the first night, it could be him speaking German in the jungle. There may also be German broadcast from the loudspeaker in the Swan during the episode "Lockdown".
• The circularity and timidity of the language used in the whispers is strongly reminiscent of the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot.
• The Whispers and the black smoke are separate phenomena.
• When People die on the island, they become part of the island, the whispers is the cumulative voices of the island and the people who died.

Physical form

• While the whispers themselves seem to have some supernatural aspects, the people responsible for them often worry about being spotted or found, suggesting they have physical bodies on the island.
• The whispers are of the other inhabitants of the island as Lindelof and Cuse stated there are in Access:Granted, the electromagnetism of the island has altered them and changed them into psychic beings able to communicate throughout the island. When the whispers are slowed down and reversed we can sometimes hear them referring to being caught. This isn't "them" physically as two people talking but "them" as in the larger group of other inhabitants that have lived on the island since before Danielle and before the losties and before the hostiles/others and before Dharma came. They were responsible for building the temple and four toed statue and the pillar that Anthony Cooper was tied to. They communicate with the losties to try and warn them of impending danger, this is why the whispers are heard before bad things happen. Also these other inhabitants are responsible for projecting images of dead people. Jacob is mainly responsible for it because he is the leader of the other inhabitants and is being held captive by Ben, this is why he asked Locke to help him. His sole aim is to try and help the losties so that they can stop the others and free him. When the monster was affected by the electromagnetism it became overly aggressive and offensive and kills anyone who could bring harm to the other inhabitants.

The big picture

• The time travel machine/device in The Orchid exploded/overloaded/malfunctioned and sent the whole island back in time, thus creating a time loop. This was The Incident. Once the island reaches the date of the incident again, the island will be sent back in time. Again.All the Losties are trapped in this time loop, reliving their time on the Island over and over again, unknowingly. But something may happen differently for every time. Like Christian Shephard being alive on the island. The whispers are the voices of people who have lived on the island during the time loop, things they have said at that exact time. “Visions” of people on the island, like the one Jack had of Christian, are really two people from different “goes”, meeting each other.

Cultural References

• In Ubisoft's game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, whispers can be heard while the prince is having visions of the future happenings, similar to Desmond's flashes.