Ok, here's exactly how the opening scene goes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the earthquake Juliet, Ben and some of the Others come outside. (Note: we don't see Alex Rousseau, Miss Klugh, Tom/"Zeke" or Pickett during this scene. This obviously is not all of the Others).

Their attention is drawn upwards by a rushing noise.

Above their heads Oceanic Flight 815, already flying very low but not in a drastically steep nose dive, splits apart. Ben/Henry Gale spots Goodwin standing nearby.

BEN
(immediately)
Goodwin!

Goodwin rushes over to him.

BEN (continued)
Did you see where the tail landed?

GOODWIN
Yeah. Probably in the water.

BEN
You run, you can make that shore in an hour.

Ethan approaches.

BEN (continued)
Ethan, get up there to that fuselage. There may actually be survivors.
(beat)
And you're one of them.
(looks from Ethan to Goodwin as he speaks, fast, decisive)
A passenger. You're in shock. Come up with an adequate story if they ask, stay quiet if they don't. Listen, learn, don't get involved. I want lists in three days. Go!

Ethan and Goodwin haul *** out of there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#


I think the plane WAS meant to land on the island. What wasn't planned was Desmond's failure to press the button, which put the plane out of control and forced it into a dive that put so much pressure on the hull that the plane split apart.

My theory is that the rest of the Others we know of were at the island's landing strip, waiting for their cargo of passengers. Having seen the plane come down, Ben was trying to salvage what he could of the plan and had Ethan and Goodwin scout the survivors. I think the "lists" were not of who the passengers were, but which of the passengers survived the crash.

I don't buy it, the conspiracy angle is dead and starting to smell...

It needs to be buried.

If the plane was supposed to land then why was the landing gear not down?

Sorry TTM, I'm going to need some major convincing that they knew it was coming after last nights episode, I see no weight to the argument at all anymore...

Just MO

I just think they took full advantage of an unplanned event.

I think that's a little overthetop.

It's an attractive theory but I just don't see any evidence of it. Everything we've been shown so far tells us that the island messes with navigation, Desmond's yacht Renry's (real Henry) balloon, flight 815. And the catastrophic event Desmond caused by not pressing the button seems to have actually brought the plane down.

Either outcome is still possible, and perhaps that's what the writers are counting on so they can change their minds later on, but I just don't see anything that tells me the plane was landing. I would have thought Benry would have been at the landing strip is one exists on such an important occassion, and that the rest of the camp wouldn't have been sitting around doing daily chores and having tea parties. Since we've not seen any other planes come over the island (surely the losties would have heard), it wouldn't seem like plane loads of unwilling passengers landing on the island is a regular affair.

You'll see..! You'll ALL see!

*wanders off laughing maniacly*

Oh yes...

The argument is dead. If The Others had any plan to infiltrate the camps, which we know they did, it was completely spur of the moment. They seemed around as surprised by the earthquake and the plane crash as the folks on the plane probably were.

And on the subject of Alex, something tells me she's something of a double agent.

Renry's (real Henry) balloon

Hahaha. Renry. I like that.

I still believe the plain was meant to come down on the island. The failsafe that caused it to break into three pieces seemed to be unexpected.

The argument is dead. If The Others had any plan to infiltrate the camps, which we know they did, it was completely spur of the moment.


Well, yeah, did you not read my post? If the plane was meant to land there would be no camps to infiltrate...

So, yeah, it was spur of the moment.

I still believe the plain was meant to come down on the island. The failsafe that caused it to break into three pieces seemed to be unexpected.

The landing gear wasn't down, it was crashing not landing...

It was the SYSTEM FAILURE that built up a big EM charge and probably fried all the planes electronics and pulled it apart, the failsafe (SYSTEM TERMINATION) has never been activated before Desmond turned the key, it had nothing to do with the crash.

But I agree, they didn't expect a SYSTEM FAILURE (which is what the earthquake was) and I think by that logic they didn't expect a jetliner to come falling out of the sky.

i thought last night's epi. finally put all those theories to rest. the others didn't MAKE the plane crash, that was obvious. they didn't know anything about the passengers at first hence the reconaissance missions by goodwin and ethan.

my question... didn't the plane look weird as it crashed? like it was busting through some space/time continuum or being magnetically pulled? just a thought...

I don't think the Others knew the plane was coming, but SOMETHING fishy was going on with the plane even before the 'SYSTEM FAILURE' or magnetic pulse - why was it SO low?It was already low before it started to come apart... but why?

my question... didn't the plane look weird as it crashed? like it was busting through some space/time continuum or being magnetically pulled? just a thought...

It looked like all the systems that are controled electronically were fried by the EM generated by the SYSTEM FAILURE, either the huge stresses caused by that or the huge magnetic attrraction, or even a combination of both, made the plane break apart.

IMO there was no space/time warp involed, the plane took off on September 22nd 2004 and it crashed on September 22nd 2004.

:smile:

If the others didn't know that the plane was crashing then why are they so interested in our Losties? Why do they have a file on Jack. If it was just happenstance then why not leave them at their camp and the Others stay in Other Land?

Somebody knew something about the plane.

They must have talked about the plan before hand. How would Goodwin and Ethan know what kind of "List" Benry meant?

It wasn't just a list of survivors, it was a list of the ones who were taken.

I don't think the Others knew the plane was coming, but SOMETHING fishy was going on with the plane even before the 'SYSTEM FAILURE' or magnetic pulse - why was it SO low?It was already low before it started to come apart... but why?

Turbulence caused it to drop down from 40,000 feet, it only dropped 200 by Jack's esitmate but he's no pilot.

It's possible that the pilot attempted to crash land the plane, that would easily account for the planes height, or lack of...

Well, yeah, did you not read my post? If the plane was meant to land there would be no camps to infiltrate...

So, yeah, it was spur of the moment.

It was spur of the moment because they had no idea that they were going to need a plan. It seemed nobody knew what was going on.


But, because I'm not a stranger to the presentation of more than one theory:
At the beginning of the episode, when Juliet had a bit of a breakdown during Downtown, it was because she was tired of the life she was living. Nobody knew that the plane would be crashing during book club. She knew full well what was going to be happening soon, and the thought of doing something like that, coupled with a song that made her long for the old days, when she was a citydweller, lead to a breakdown. But, of course, she'd been trained to cope with that kind of feeling, and composed herself immediately.

If the others didn't know that the plane was crashing then why are they so interested in our Losties? Why do they have a file on Jack. If it was just happenstance then why not leave them at their camp and the Others stay in Other Land?
I think they would be very interested in anyone who crashed on *their* island, why wouldn't they be considering how concerned they seem to be with good and bad people. I also asume they have files on all the losties they're interested in. It wouldn't take a decent investigator long to put something like that together.

I don't see anything that says the others had anything to do with the plane. I'm sure they've had other incidents of outsiders being drawn to the island (because of navigational interruptions or whatever, such as Desmond and Renry) but this could have been the first major incident like this.

A plane that size would take a pretty big runway. Where is this at? Next to the Hilton? Surely the losties would have found a clearning that big in one of their adventures.

My theory is that there's a second group of Others in conflict with the ones we've seen. This second group has some sort of paranormal abilities--they're responsible for the Whispers as well as the dreams and hallucinations the Losties have been having. I also believe they can reach outside the Island with these powers.

I think the Others we've seen have a huge material advantage in training, weapons and supplies, so the Others we haven't seen keep bringing people to the Island to help (well, to be used as pawns in some unseen game is probably closer to the truth). I think they manipulated the pilot into thinking his communications were dead to bring him over the Island. I think they manipulated Desmond to bring about the system failure that opened a window for the plane to enter the snow globe, and I think they sent Cerebus (who works with/for them) to bring down the plane and make sure certain people survived.

I say "certain people" because I think most of the people we know were manipulated by this unseen second group of Others to be on that plane, all as part of their plan.

That's my theory, anyway.

if the others didnt know the plane was gonna crash...then how did they know sawyers real name is James Ford...ethan would have told them sawyer?

I think that if they were going to land on this island that perhaps the pilot would have said something back in the first season before he died. My guess is that Benry or someone close to him has connections with the outside world which is where they got all of Jack's information. Because as far as we know Benry knows how to leave the island as to when he told Michael. I also say they were just doing what they could with the situation.

I just realized that my strong urge to be a smart-arse has led me to title this thread wrong. I don't think the plane was meant to crash, I think it was meant to land on the island and that the crash was accidental. I explain that in my post, but still, wrong title, oops.


For those that don't think the Others had anything to do with Flight 815, how do you explain Cindy's disappearance? From all we've seen of the Others, they don't have the ability to simply make someone disappear. Cindy was there one moment, and gone the next. No struggle, no sign of anything unusual, until after when the whispers started.

But, it would have been really easy for her to just quietly hide while the other tailies were distracted with hoisting Sawyer's stretcher up that hill.

I say Cindy is an Other. She was also a flight attendant on the plane. That leads me to believe the Others were bringing Flight 815 and its contents to the island.

if the others didnt know the plane was gonna crash...then how did they know sawyers real name is James Ford...ethan would have told them sawyer?

The names of everyone on that plane would be common knowledge within days, getting that information and the information they had about Jack would have been easy for them IMO.
100%



For those that don't think the Others had anything to do with Flight 815, how do you explain Cindy's disappearance? From all we've seen of the Others, they don't have the ability to simply make someone disappear. Cindy was there one moment, and gone the next. No struggle, no sign of anything unusual, until after when the whispers started.

But, it would have been really easy for her to just quietly hide while the other tailies were distracted with hoisting Sawyer's stretcher up that hill.

I say Cindy is an Other. She was also a flight attendant on the plane. That leads me to believe the Others were bringing Flight 815 and its contents to the island.

That they managed to take her is not extraordinary in the least, these people are skilled at what they do.

My own personal theory is that the Widmore Pregnancy test belonged to Cindy and they took her because she was expecting a little baby Troup, maybe they needed another baby after they lost Claire.

I don't think there were any Others on the plane myself, it's possible but because I think they weren't expecting it it seems very unlikely IMO.

That they managed to take her is not extraordinary in the least, these people are skilled at what they do.

But nothing we have seen them do, including their kidnapping of various Tail segment survivors, has suggested they are that stealthy. If you watch the scene where Cindy disappears, she really does disappear in a camera angle change.

I like the pregnancy test theory though!

[quote=Richardstone;1192578]The names of everyone on that plane would be common knowledge within days, getting that information and the information they had about Jack would have been easy for them IMO.
100%


Well, the names of everyone on the plane could be obtained from the manifest, for sure. The question is, how would they know that James Ford was Sawyer? Was Ethan found out before or after people knew his real name. Michael never knew his real name; the only people that did (I think) were Hurley and Locke.

i love this theory.

"there may actually be survivors"

waahahahaahahahahaah

****joins in the manaical laughter****

I'm finding this believable. The pilot could have been lying when he said they had radio failure and turned to land in Fiji. He may have been instructed to bring the plane to the island but the unexpected system failure tore the plane apart instead. So Ben quickly went to Plan B which was check it out, make a list of the survivors and go from there.

I'm finding this believable. The pilot could have been lying when he said they had radio failure and turned to land in Fiji. He may have been instructed to bring the plane to the island but the unexpected system failure tore the plane apart instead.

And maybe that's why Smokie ... removed him ... before he could spill the beans.