Bali is in the Indian Ocean. I know that they said they were 1000 miles off course, but weren't we thinking they were in the Pacific Ocean near Fiji. I wonder if the 2004 tsunami will play a part on the island since we know that they are coming up on Christmas from what Nikki said. :o

As far as I know, Bali wasn't affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, it's in kinda the wrong spot.

Didn't Kate say in season one that she was on her way to Bali, but ended up on the flight to Sydney? I believe it was in the scene where Kate first figured out Sun could understand English, I can't remember which episode that is.

Didn't Kate say in season one that she was on her way to Bali, but ended up on the flight to Sydney? I believe it was in the scene where Kate first figured out Sun could understand English, I can't remember which episode that is.

Yep, though it should be noted that it was Naomi who said that the complete plane was found 4 miles down in a tench off the coast of Bali, not that the island was there. Naomi never gave any indication that the island was near Bali. As a matter of fact, she stated that the coordinates they were given were out in the middle of open water. and they didn't expect to find anything.

Yep, though it should be noted that it was Naomi who said that the complete plane was found 4 miles down in a tench off the coast of Bali, not that the island was there. Naomi never gave any indication that the island was near Bali. As a matter of fact, she stated that the coordinates they were given were out in the middle of open water. and they didn't expect to find anything.

I guess that all depends on what your theory is about the plane wreckage and whether they have to be nearby... hopefully Naomi will explain more before the season is out!

this may sound a little silly, but maybe the island isn't stationary?
with it's magnetic properties, maybe it is actually effected by the poles / moon and is constantly moving?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how in the world could the wreckage be found in an four miles deep in an ocean trench off the coast of Bali. That is NOWHERE near a Sydney to L.A. line.

Did anyone think this was a strange comment?

It's off the NE coast of Australia and they did fly off course so who knows.

Ending up near Bali when you were headed for LA would mean replacing a long flight over Ocean with a long flight over Land. There is no way in the world someone would not have noticed, either on the plane itself, or anyone on the ground tracking it, even if it had lost contact.

And forget the people on the plane or that the Losties know they were off course...................how would Oceanic Airlines and the media covering the crash explain why a flight from Sydney to LA wound up on the wrong side of Australia? That is at least 1000 miles in the wrong direction.

Obviously it was media covered or how else does Cooper and Naomi know about it? And we saw media coverage when Mikhail was following it in the Flame.

Someone should ask Naomi - where are they? She has the GPS.

Actually, that didn't surprise me at all. They would have had to be somewhere in the Indian Ocean for it to be daylight when the plane crashed.

This is totally messing with my head, I have no theory on this apart from flight 815 was not flight 815 . I keep thinking back to how they all ended up on this flight.

Jack argued to get on this flight
Hurley nearly missed it
Locke was sent back from his Walkabout
Shannon and Boone had their seats changed
Sayid changed his flight
Malkin told Claire it had to be that flight that day
Sun should not have been on board
Kate would not have been if the farmer hadn't have given her up
Rose lied to Bernard after seeing Issac so they could go home
Liams refusal to reform Driveshaft sent Charlie back early
Sawyer would probably have been deported at some point anyway !
Walts mother dying sent Michael to Australia causing them to be on the flight.
We know Joanna had an ear infection, she would not have been on that flight.

I haven't accounted for the Tailies but apart from Libby we know why they were in Australia.

This all could be just good old fashioned FATE, but I don't think so, but I can't decide WHY.

Ending up near Bali when you were headed for LA would mean replacing a long flight over Ocean with a long flight over Land. There is no way in the world someone would not have noticed, either on the plane itself, or anyone on the ground tracking it, even if it had lost contact.

Unless they turned off the transponder then tracked north along the east coast over water (just out of view of land) then hung a left for Bali once they got to the top end of Oz. This is one possible explanantion.

Unless the black box was recovered or there was categorical evidence of pilot or mechanical error, the crashing off Bali (site of a massive bombing two years earllier) of a Sydney-Los Angeles airliner would have generated intense media interest and speculation.

I keep thinking back to how they all ended up on this flight.

Sun should not have been on board

I would follow that Jin would not have been on board either. There is no way he would have boarded 815 with his wife having mysteriously disappeared only minutes earlier. :undecide:

I think that there is no such thing as fate when it comes to the island, the fact that all of the survivors barely made it onto the plane in time, then it crashes is not a coincidence at all, it was the island looking for someone-locke, ben needing a surgeon- jack, etc.

Wonder who made the underwater cameras ... Widmore?

It took 73 years to find the Titanic which was found at a depth of 12,500 ft ... or about 2.4 miles. Naomi (we can now say her name ;) ) said Flight 815 was found at a depth of about 4 miles.

How was it possible to find a plane that they had no idea where it was at that depth so fast? :undecide:

Didn't the pilot in the, well, pilot episode say he thought they were over Fiji or near Fiji? You'd be able to tell you were going back over Australia and Indonesia just by looking out the window.

I don't know. I'm starting to think there's something fishy going on on this island.

I'm thinking that by "finding" the plane in an ocean trench, it means it was in very, very deep water and a research-type (or remotely operated) sub from some reputable corporation (cough..Widmore/Hanso/Whichever-related-company..cough) actually found the wreckage. But because of the depth of the plane there was no feasible way to recover the bodies (they really couldn't since it's all a lie) they just reported the "fact" and maybe provided a bit of video supposedly showing the plane. So, since Naomi believes what the world heard on TV was true, she's telling us what 99.99 percent of the world believes. The other 0.01 percent have an interest in keeping knowledge of the island quiet -- and that could include high government officials.

I think it must have been a script error and they meant Fiji. Take a look at this map:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=bali&ie=UTF8&ll=-18.479609,178.59375&spn=51.92641,97.382813&t=h&z=5&om=1

There is clearly a large trench near Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Of the 3 Fiji is the most recognized so the news would probably have referenced that country.

Don't forget Kate's comment, I believe to Sun in the garden about her being on the way to explore BALI, before going to Australia....Flippant comment or hint?

Season One.

:coolorng:

If the Bali crash site is a fake, there is no point in trying to reconcile what the survivors experienced while on board with what the world thinks has happened to flight 815. Hanso/Widmore/whomever is responsible for the faked crash site have to come up with a faked narrative of what happened to the flight anyway. Their explanation of how and why 815 ended up in the middle of Indonesia when it was headed for LA is still a mystery, but it's not one we necessarily have to solve. Going by Naomi and Cooper's reactions, the world seems satisfied with that explanation and considers the crash a done deal.

Of course, the flip side to this is that if there can be no satisfactory explanation, then both Naomi and Cooper were lying to the survivors about what the world thinks happened to 815.

Don't forget Kate's comment, I believe to Sun in the garden about her being on the way to explore BALI, before going to Australia....Flippant comment or hint?

Season One.

:coolorng:
Yup the first thing I thought

Wow, I totally forgot about Kate's comment ... hmmm.

But I do not bu xy that this error crept into the script. "Bali" and "Fiji" (while both being four letter words) are not close enough to confuse, especially for the Lost script checkers.

So this leaves us with a plane that was indeed headed in the wrong direction. I checked the World Atlas for other Bali(s) and none of them made any more sense. I agree with a previous poster: Wouldn't you be aware of flying over land at some point???

And someone mentioned "Fiji" ... that was mentioned by the pilot, which in a funny way makes a sorta Bermuda triangle: Sydney, Bali and Fiji. It's also interesting to note that Bali is about the same distance from Sydney as Fiji is.

Maybe the great Indian Ocean Earthquake will move the plane around some more :)

But why oh why didn't Sayid, Charlie, Hurley, Jin or Desmond think "Bali? That can't be right." Maybe this will be addressed.

This is obviously a mistake. Or is it?

Here is another picture with Flight route.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_RWlm5L61uiM/RjprS1dof0I/AAAAAAAAABY/XaV1XvTSo7o/s1600-h/1.PNG

I'm thinking that by "finding" the plane in an ocean trench, it means it was in very, very deep water and a research-type (or remotely operated) sub from some reputable corporation (cough..Widmore/Hanso/Whichever-related-company..cough) actually found the wreckage. But because of the depth of the plane there was no feasible way to recover the bodies (they really couldn't since it's all a lie) they just reported the "fact" and maybe provided a bit of video supposedly showing the plane. So, since Naomi believes what the world heard on TV was true, she's telling us what 99.99 percent of the world believes. The other 0.01 percent have an interest in keeping knowledge of the island quiet -- and that could include high government officials.

Exactly! It's just a cover-up put in a convenient place where the actual crash can't be verified (4 miles deep). Naomi said they showed 'footage from those little robot subs'. Hanso (or whoever) is just trying to keep the island away from prying eyes...

Oldwiz

If a flight from Sydney to L.A. goes missing, why would anyone even think of looking near Bali? And if it was announced that the flight was found in the Java Trench, off Bali, wouldn't world reaction be Bali? How did it get there?
The announcement that the flight was found off Bali would have been greeted with the kind of suspicion that Darma, Hanso, Oceanic, or whoever, should have wanted to avoid. Instead of flight 815 going into the history books as a tragic accident, it becomes a mystery that some investigative reporters will not leave alone.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how in the world could the wreckage be found in an four miles deep in an ocean trench off the coast of Bali. That is NOWHERE near a Sydney to L.A. line.

Did anyone think this was a strange comment?


Very strange comment and it makes me even more suspicious about Naomi.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how in the world could the wreckage be found in an four miles deep in an ocean trench off the coast of Bali. That is NOWHERE near a Sydney to L.A. line.

Did anyone think this was a strange comment?

They staged a crash in a place that no one could get to it. Remember Naomi said that they had to send robots down to look at the crash. IF they put a plane someplace where humans could get to then that fact that it is fake would be noticed

From the transcript at Losthatch.com--

S1E13 Kate: Can you believe we've been here for over 3 weeks? I was on my way to Bali. I travel a lot. I was looking forward to exploring the island. Somehow I ended up on a flight to LA, instead. Guess that falls under the category be careful what you wish for. You understood me. You did, didn't you. You just understood what I said? You speak English?

Be careful what you wish for? So due to the marshall's interference she ended up on a flight to LA instead of Bali, but the world thinks she ended up off the coast of Bali?

While I'm not yet convinced Naomi is telling the truth, if she is, then placing the "wreckage" near Bali, on the other side of Australia, will certainly have the world confused. However, this way the focus of the investigation becomes "How did 815 get here?" Thus any media attention is kept far away from where the flightpath actually went.

Hey, if they are in the Indian Ocean - doesn't this mean they should be getting hit by a rather large tsunami in about a week?

While I'm not yet convinced Naomi is telling the truth, if she is, then placing the "wreckage" near Bali, on the other side of Australia, will certainly have the world confused. However, this way the focus of the investigation becomes "How did 815 get here?" Thus any media attention is kept far away from where the flightpath actually went.
I agree wholeheartedly.

I am living in Singapore which is about 4hrs flight to Bali.

I think TPTB is playing with Indonesia's real life reputation in the aviation industry.

Indonesia, the country that govern Bali, had one of the worst aviation safety in the world for the past couple of years.

There are a number of reports that flights lost track with the control only to be found later crashed somewhere.

We hear it so often here in South East Asia that we are numb to it now, nothing surprising.

Go to google and search for "Indonesia aviation safety" and you know what I mean.

Maybe the flight path of 815 can only be tracked by an Indonesian control tower at a certain point and that is where the whole mess turns up or Dharma is taking opportunity of the country's lack of aviation standard.

I found this map http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Island_in_Google_Maps showing that flight path are very near to Indonesia from this thread http://www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/showthread.php?t=78251 .

But then, I'm no expert in this flight path thingy except what I see in the news... and flights getting lost and crashing in Indonesia is what we see in the news often.

MY APOLOGIES IF THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DISCUSSED. I'm still relatively new to the 'lage.

After Naomi crashed on the island and has since revealed all this new info about the "real flight 815" and how that flight apparently crashed off of Bali.....
It got me thinking about what the pilot said in the "pilot" episode.

I'm trying to see if there's any evidence to support whether or not the pilot was lying, or misinformed or whatever......
something (clearly) doesn't add up.

According to Lostpedia.com and the entry on Oceanic Flight 815, the plane apparently departed from the airport (in Sydney) at 14:55 ( which would be 2:55pm, correct?)

and scheduled to land in Los Angeles at 10:42am.

That's roughly a 20 hour flight (19 hours and 47 minutes if you wanna break down the time even more specifically.)

However, according to Lostpedia (which I realize isn't gospel) they timed the flight to last approx. 14 hours, give or take.


Now, there's about an 18 hour time difference from Syndey to Los Angeles, with Australia being half a day ahead of L.A.

So when it was 2:55pm in Sydney on Sept. 22nd, it was 8:55pm in Los Angeles on Sept. 21st. (How's my math? Am I still correct?)

The pilot said they lost radio communication six hours into the flight. Which, by that point the flight would already have (lost or gained?) approx. 2 hours, making the time at which the radio went out, about 6:55pm.

Then the pilot said they turned back to head to Fiji, and 2 hours later, the plane hit turbulence.

If we're following the timeline I've created so far, the plane would have been a bit more north of Fiji when the radio went out, thereby changing the midair flight time to about 3 or 4pm.

Which, incidentally does coincide with Lostpedia and the series itself. Desmond thinks he crashed the plane by looking at the Pearl's print log:

16:16 is when the plane apparently crashed. In non military time that would be, about 4:16pm.

Is my math right? I'm really confused by this whole thing. But I wanted to bring it up so someone could either help me or debunk my crazy theory that the pilot was lying (or didn't know where he was going).

After these last couple of episodes, I'm constantly going back to what the pilot said to Jack and Kate.

If someone could at least help me get my facts in order, I'd really appreciate it. Does anyone else think this is worth investigating more thoroughly?:confused:

"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 a thousand miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place."

This is what the Pilot said. They were a thousand miles off course from Fiji.
Without the island interfering with their flight, it's possible that a flight whose equipment went haywire could indeed land near Bali.

I figure Bali is about 4000 miles off course from Fiji.
Cooper said his son crashed in the Pacific ocean. Either he or Naomi is wrong.

"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 a thousand miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place."

This is what the Pilot said. They were a thousand miles off course from Fiji.
Without the island interfering with their flight, it's possible that a flight whose equipment went haywire could indeed land near Bali.


The pilot was saying they were headed to Fiji for the emergency, and because of that they were a thousand miles from their intended flight path...not a thousand miles from Fiji.

I do agree, however, that this Bali thing makes no sense as a cover up. No one would even look near Bali unless radar tracks showed it there...but the pilot felt that they were off radar. And how would you find it FOUR MILES down? (You wouldn't be expected to find it) So saying it was near Bali only invites more scrutiny because no one would believe it.

If the radio went out 6 hours in, as the pilot states, we can assume that the plane was functioning and tracking correctly up until then.. This being the case, 6 hours is a long time, and would have put them half way between Fiji and Hawaii. (It is just over 3 hours from Sydney to Suva- Fiji, and over 9 hours from Sydney to Hawaii.) Even if after 6 hours when they started to have problems, they had turned around, there is no way in the world they could have gotten close to Bali. Id be suprised if they even got as far as Fiji.

Lots of great ideas floating around out there, guys!

Currently, I'm sticking to the theory that in no way could a plane venture that far off course without the pilot's, or the crew's for that matter, instincts kicking in. I'm not a pilot, but maybe somebody can back this up: Wouldn't a pilot have some general directional skills in the event a plane's navigational system goes haywire?

So this leaves the theory that Naomi is either lying through her teeth or there is a large, coordinated media cover-up. If Naomi is indeed lying, she must have an agenda - either "Other"-related or Widmore-related. This seems to make the most sense; the media coverage would be so great, there would be an uproar over how in the world a plane could venture so far off course. I'm hoping Sayid has processed this to some degree, because not one person in that tent seemed to catch this red flag. Nobody said "Bali? But that can't be right. We were heading to L.A. across the Pacific Ocean." Yet nobody spoke up. Hmm .......

I think Naomi could be telling the truth about her mission from Penny, but tried to fabricate a plane crash story to save face for Widmore. Desmond was her mission, and Desmond seems tied to the Widmores, for good or bad.

Just a though.

You know, I didn't really think about the fact that they were headed to LA for 6 hours before turning back for Fiji, and ending up near Bali.

Someone needs to plot where a Great Circle heading from Sydney to LA will put you after six hours, and then find the Great Circle Heading from there back to Bali and Fiji. The heading may not be as far off as I thought, although the distance is definitely longer to Bali.

Any pilots with software out there could figure this out faster than I could on paper.

http://adamjiro.net/images/flight-path.jpg

That's a rough approximation of the flight path stitched together.

The time (distance) between the radio malfunction and turbulence (C) isn't given but it's enough to fly approximately 1000 miles off course (A) -- here's a hint, think Pythagoras (B would be 3 hours out from Fiji, given Bond_81's info-- 777's fly at 570 mph...so 1710 miles? I don't know if it was a 777).

Unless they turned left and went straight 1000 miles off course, they were flying for a long time before the turbulence hit. Roughly 1980 miles worth.

The strangest part: How does a pilot turn a plane around without, A) anyone noticing and, B) telling everyone?

I figure Bali is about 4000 miles off course from Fiji.
Cooper said his son crashed in the Pacific ocean. Either he or Naomi is wrong.

Cooper is probably right, he has nothing to gain from lying to the Losties because in his mind they are already dead.

Naomi might have more to gain if she actually is an Other or DHARMA person.

Hey, if they are in the Indian Ocean - doesn't this mean they should be getting hit by a rather large tsunami in about a week?

Again, no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Tsunami check out the graphic... nowhere near Bali. Actually, I'm kinda annoyed about that... with all the theories going around that they were actually in the indian ocean, I sorta thought it would have been cool if we finally found out where they where cos a giant wave came and washed their beach camp away (while they all make it to the hills, of course!). But anyway... perhaps just the plane ended up near Bali... and they're actually somewhere closer to Aceh...

Cooper has nothing to gain by lying but he may be misinformed. It is logical to assume that a plane crashing while travelling from Australia to California would do so in the Pacific.

The plane left Australia at 2:55 pm, was in the air for 6 hours, then for another 2(?) hours so crashed about 8:55 - 10:55 pm Sydney time. It would have to have been going west to crash in daylight. It would have been night time along a northeast course.

The strangest part: How does a pilot turn a plane around without, A) anyone noticing and, B) telling everyone? Remember the little puffs of smoke that came out over the passengers seats when the plane started to break apart? You could see them in the still pictures. Maybe that was something that rendered the passengers unconscious during part of the flight.

The strangest part: How does a pilot turn a plane around without, A) anyone noticing and, B) telling everyone?

A lot of people have questioned how the passengers wouldn't have noticed where they're flying, but I don't think it's so strange. When you take off (at least from Sydney) the plane often has to take a certain route for a short while, and then turn to its intended path. During a flight pilots sometimes bank and seem to change direction or turn - I've always assumed they had their reasons.

Then, while flying, you're not looking out the window all the time, and even if you were, you'd see clouds a lot of the time. Every now and then you might see a glint of water, or some land, but how would you know exactly what you were looking at? People generally don't question these things, either. You don't expect the plane to be flying in completely the wrong direction.

Not that I'm arguing that this did happen - just that I don't think it's strange if no-one noticed.

kitdavis:

I would think if the entire flight was to occur over water and they were flying over land in roughly the opposite direction for a good 2-3 hours at least, somebody would notice. The only explanation would be significantly cloudy conditions. If the pilot is telling the truth about being somewhere near Fiji, I don't see how the plane would even get close to Bali. Naomi has some explaining to do (if anyone bothers questioning her) :)

Remember the little puffs of smoke that came out over the passengers seats when the plane started to break apart? You could see them in the still pictures. Maybe that was something that rendered the passengers unconscious during part of the flight.

Can someone please put these still pictures up, I never noticed that!

Remember the little puffs of smoke that came out over the passengers seats when the plane started to break apart? You could see them in the still pictures. Maybe that was something that rendered the passengers unconscious during part of the flight.

Whhhaaaaatttt??? Screen caps please. This is completely new to me. Is there an old thread about this somewhere?

According to Lostpedia.com and the entry on Oceanic Flight 815, the plane apparently departed from the airport (in Sydney) at 14:55 ( which would be 2:55pm, correct?)

and scheduled to land in Los Angeles at 10:42am.

That's roughly a 20 hour flight (19 hours and 47 minutes if you wanna break down the time even more specifically.)

However, according to Lostpedia (which I realize isn't gospel) they timed the flight to last approx. 14 hours, give or take.

Lostpedia is correct. It's about a 13.5 hr flight from Sydney to LA.


Now, there's about an 18 hour time difference from Syndey to Los Angeles, with Australia being half a day ahead of L.A.

Not sure what you mean here as it contradicts. Unless your 'half a day' = 18 hrs?

Yes, I meant the 18hrs as "half a day"....sorry if that got confusing.

I'm not sure I know enough about flight travel to post the information I want to, the information the pilot gave Jack and Kate versus the factual info regarding a flight from Syndney to LA seems off to me......

Anyone care to enlighten?

Some of this is way over my head, and granted....I wouldn't have been nearly as obsessed about this thread had Naomi not suddenly mentioned Bali (which, as many people have attested to; is NOWHERE NEAR where we thought our losties were)

I'm just curious if anyone has more insight or can at least confirm that the Pilot was correct in his calculations, otherwise...I'm gonna hop on the conspiracy theory bandwagon and say the pilot was in on it somehow.

I don't think that the Losties are actually near Bali. Only Naomi can shed some light as to where they actually are as she had the coordinants and flew over the island with her helicopter.

It seems that in the media, they say flight 815 crashed near Bali. What would be interesting is to see how the media explained how a flight from Sydney to LA would crash near Bali. I'd also like to find out how it is they found a plane 4 miles underwater so far off course.

kitdavis:

I would think if the entire flight was to occur over water and they were flying over land in roughly the opposite direction for a good 2-3 hours at least, somebody would notice. The only explanation would be significantly cloudy conditions. If the pilot is telling the truth about being somewhere near Fiji, I don't see how the plane would even get close to Bali. Naomi has some explaining to do (if anyone bothers questioning her) :)

Everyone needs to step back and remember a plane was found in crevice in the bottom of the ocean. Flight 815 still landed on an Island in the Pacific someplace. The plane that was found is set up to look like flight 815.. Worrying about how it got off course and wound up near Bali is for the people that found the plane and those following the reported story.
The only reason a plane was found near Bali is not because it flew there from Sydney but because it was placed there in a manner that it would be forced to stay there

Bali is 2,870 miles from Sydney, which is roughly a five hour trip heading west. The plane was heading northeast towards LA for 6 hours, which would be roughly 3000 miles due to the rotation of the earth slowing their progress slightly. (Which is why flights west are shorter than those heading east timewise.)

This would place the aircraft and bali roughly 5,000 miles apart when they turned around. Even heading west against the earths rotation, and exaggerating the speed of the plane immensly, it would never be closer than 3000 miles from Bali.

Therefore, the crash in the Java trench, which is 4.8 miles deep is nothing more than a hoax to stop the search for the real flight 815. Now, the plane crashed in the daytime, so the ONLY explanation would be that they were flying west from the very start of the flight. Not sure how this helps, but Bali is impossible if we take the pilot at his word, theres no way it could crash there if they were on course for 6 hours and crashed 2 hours after turning around.

I don't think that the Losties are actually near Bali. Only Naomi can shed some light as to where they actually are as she had the coordinants and flew over the island with her helicopter.

It seems that in the media, they say flight 815 crashed near Bali. What would be interesting is to see how the media explained how a flight from Sydney to LA would crash near Bali. I'd also like to find out how it is they found a plane 4 miles underwater so far off course.

I agree they're nowhere near Bali. But not only Naomi knows. Desmond knows as well, as he crashed his boat there. And he told us in the season 2 finale. They're less than a week due east of Fiji at a speed of 9 knots. That's about half-way between Fiji and Tahiti, or maybe closer to Tahiti. This is consistant with Rouseau's being 3 days out of Tahiti, and I would expect that if Naomi elaborates on what her coordinates were, it will be consistant with that.

As for why the decoy plane would crash off Bali, there's only one explanation of how an airliner could get that far of course. Anyone? Anyone? Hijacking. After the crash, they somehow obtained another plane full of passengers and covered their tracks about where that came from, changed its transponder so ATC would recognize it as 815, and passed it off as being the hijacked 815, en route to the middle east. (which, from where 815 lost contact, I believe would take them roughly over Bali.) Then they crashed it into the ocean where it was too deep to do a recovery (just like the decoy for The Red October), and very far away from the island so that no one would even think about snooping anywhere near the island. They knew were to find the plane because they had it on radar from Bali when it crashed.

Firstly i have to agree, there is no way whatsoever that a plane 6 hours into a Sydney-LAZ flight would end up in Bali, not way whatsoever. The minute she said Bali i was like "no way!"

But i do have a theory that the real flight 815 did not crash on the Island anyway, i have been wondering lately about other things that could of happened during the flight. What about everyone on board the plane being drugged, gassed whatever and taken of the plane and somehow taken to the Island? I have no idea how this could have happened, but the alternative is also the single biggest mystery in lost.. How on earth could there be survivors from a plane breaking up in mid-air and crashing into the ocean/island so far below? It is impossible, there are never any survivors to these kinds of crashes.

It could well be that once taking all our losties from the plane (at say a remote airstrip in the middle of the Aussie outback and putting them on another plane for their trip to the Island) they replaced them with a bunch of corpses and crashed the real flight 815 into the sea off Bali.

This of course assumes that our losties were picked to be on the Island and are not the victims of an accident, but is this not what we are being led to believe anyway??

Everyone needs to step back and remember a plane was found in crevice in the bottom of the ocean. Flight 815 still landed on an Island in the Pacific someplace. The plane that was found is set up to look like flight 815.. Worrying about how it got off course and wound up near Bali is for the people that found the plane and those following the reported story. The only reason a plane was found near Bali is not because it flew there from Sydney but because it was placed there in a manner that it would be forced to stay there
That would all make sense if it weren't for this part:

"Worrying about how it got off course and wound up near Bali is for the people that found the plane and those following the reported story."

Anthony Cooper is one of the people that followed the reported story. He specifically said that the plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean. This completely contradicts what Naomi said.
Which means either Naomi is lying, or Anthony Cooper is lying, or the writers made a big mistake.

As for why the decoy plane would crash off Bali, there's only one explanation of how an airliner could get that far of course. Anyone? Anyone? Hijacking. After the crash, they somehow obtained another plane full of passengers and covered their tracks about where that came from, changed its transponder so ATC would recognize it as 815, and passed it off as being the hijacked 815, en route to the middle east. (which, from where 815 lost contact, I believe would take them roughly over Bali.) Then they crashed it into the ocean where it was too deep to do a recovery (just like the decoy for The Red October), and very far away from the island so that no one would even think about snooping anywhere near the island. They knew were to find the plane because they had it on radar from Bali when it crashed.

Basicly that is a great idea and explanation!
I almost came to the same conclusion roughly 2 minutes prior to reading your post but only almost.

I wondered if it could be possible that the pilot lied in Season 1 and since we all extrapolated the Island's location from that back in the days, we would have been FAR off course.
But then I thought the pilot couldn't have been lieing: If his story about Fiji was a lie and he instead flew to Bali "in reality" that would have never been possible. The minute he would abondon his course to L.A. and turn to Bali, not answering the radio or explaining himself a squadron of military jets would be in the air and force him to land ASAP or shoot him down, especially after 9/11!

So I had the highjacking idea too but didn't realise it. :)
Anyway, your theory Pyth, would not explain how a highjacked plane can make it from ... to Bali without being forced to land or shot down.

Even with the influence of the Others' Higher Power, too many things don't add up, somebody must be lying or grossly misinformed. What bothers me is that the story gave no indication that the pilot was not to be believed and the accounts of Desmond and Rousseau seem to back him up. Then a new source appears in Naomi who also seems to be credible but has contradictory information. In order to pull off a fake crash site near Bali, the flight would have to have been manipulated from the start, but the Others seem shocked to see it crash on the Island.

But why oh why didn't Sayid, Charlie, Hurley, Jin or Desmond think "Bali? That can't be right." Maybe this will be addressed.

Why indeed. Desmond, who should know ocean geography intimately since he was sailing around the world, should have immediatly questioned her statement that the plane crashed off Bali. It's just so far away from Fiji that it doesn't make any sense at all. I'd think Sayid would realize it too; he seems to be good with maps. The other guys, maybe not so much.

Were they bitten by the stupid bug again or is Desmond so desperate to believe in Naomi's mission that he'll accept everything she says as fact?

That would all make sense if it weren't for this part:

"Worrying about how it got off course and wound up near Bali is for the people that found the plane and those following the reported story."

Anthony Cooper is one of the people that followed the reported story. He specifically said that the plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean. This completely contradicts what Naomi said.
Which means either Naomi is lying, or Anthony Cooper is lying, or the writers made a big mistake.

Naomi said the plane crashed off the coast of Bali, and Bali is in the Pacific Ocean, so their stories don't actually contradict. It is interesting that both of them immediately question the reality of the Losties story, rather than the explanation the crash-site-fakers provided. This means that they are either both lying or the story provided is really believable.

I also thought a hijacking would be a good explanation of why they would be so far off course, but then it seems like Naomi and Cooper wouldn't have used the passive voice in describing the crash...they would have said it was brought down in a hijacking.

In any case, the only information the pilot or the passengers of 815 have that can be corroborated with the rest of the world is that 815 was flying from Sydney to L.A....the story of the real crash of 815nad the fake crash can diverge as soon as they take off.

Naomi said the plane crashed off the coast of Bali, and Bali is in the Pacific Ocean, so their stories don't actually contradict.
What?! Bali is in the Pacific Ocean?! Where did you get such wrong information?
Bali borders the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Java Sea in the north. The Java Sea is part of the Indian Ocean. This places Bali completely in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific.

Which means Anthony Cooper and Naomi are contradicting themselves. Either one of them is lying or the writers made the same mistake you did, by placing Bali in the Pacific Ocean.

Here's a map of Indonesia. You can see that Bali borders the Indian Ocean and the Java Sea:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/indonesia_adm_2002.jpg

Here's some info about the Indian Ocean. The Java Sea is listed as part of the Indian Ocean:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xo.html

Ha ha ha! 1st off islands can't move like that, it's not like they are floating on top of the water they are the tops of mountains.that poke out of the water. Besides Naomi was give coordinates how would she find it if it moved, she would have had to be given a range of them or something like that.

Second it's affected not effected.

this may sound a little silly, but maybe the island isn't stationary?
with it's magnetic properties, maybe it is actually effected by the poles / moon and is constantly moving?

that comment caught my attention, and it seems impossible to explain how a plane could get that far off course.

While I'm not yet convinced Naomi is telling the truth, if she is, then placing the "wreckage" near Bali, on the other side of Australia, will certainly have the world confused. However, this way the focus of the investigation becomes "How did 815 get here?" Thus any media attention is kept far away from where the flightpath actually went.


Exactly. Let the world wonder how it got off course, the last place anyone looks is in the Pacific east of Fiji and they are not retreiving black boxes in 20,000 ft (4 miles) depths. The world will move on. Protect the island's secrets, at all costs.

Ha ha ha! 1st off islands can't move like that, it's not like they are floating on top of the water they are the tops of mountains.that poke out of the water. Besides Naomi was give coordinates how would she find it if it moved, she would have had to be given a range of them or something like that.

Second it's affected not effected.


***Mod edited*** I think when talking about Lost we should be dispensing with conventional wisdom, no?

We already know there is an issue with the location of the Island, we still have no idea whatsoever how a small plane taking off from Nigeria crashed into an Island in the South Pacific, this is impossible and could not happen. The moving island theory is an old one but cannot be discounted as it does make sense in relation to some of our mysteries.

I am not saying i believe this but using our "reality" as a basis for understanding the puzzles in lost is probably not going to help.

Great work on the timeline....checks out dead on.

Ha ha ha! 1st off islands can't move like that, it's not like they are floating on top of the water they are the tops of mountains.that poke out of the water. Besides Naomi was give coordinates how would she find it if it moved, she would have had to be given a range of them or something like that.

Second it's affected not effected.

thanks for the grammer lesson al :rolleye1:
and while i've never been great at grammer,
'effect' can actually be used as a transitive verb just as 'affect' would be.

and i know that islands can't move.....but should we go through all the things that can't happen yet still do on this island?
Basically exactly what Murphyweb said :biggrin:

and if you remember correctly, Naomi went to where the coordinates pointed her and there was no island.....her boat was way off the coast, she only saw the island from the helicopter.

seems way too unrealistic, and all of the things on the island allow for the suspension of disbelief, but a moving island is way too corny and seems to be a cheap plot device, and it is just too unrealistic for me, personally, to suspend my disbelief.

seems way too unrealistic, and all of the things on the island allow for the suspension of disbelief, but a moving island is way too corny and seems to be a cheap plot device, and it is just too unrealistic for me, personally, to suspend my disbelief.

i'm with ya gwingfan
i don't really believe it to be true either
i guess in my original post i should have made it clear that i was joking
and just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on the possibility
:smile:

What?! Bali is in the Pacific Ocean?! Where did you get such wrong information?
Bali borders the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Java Sea in the north. The Java Sea is part of the Indian Ocean. This places Bali completely in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific.

Which means Anthony Cooper and Naomi are contradicting themselves. Either one of them is lying or the writers made the same mistake you did, by placing Bali in the Pacific Ocean.

Here's a map of Indonesia. You can see that Bali borders the Indian Ocean and the Java Sea:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/indonesia_adm_2002.jpg

Here's some info about the Indian Ocean. The Java Sea is listed as part of the Indian Ocean:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xo.html
The map has boundaries for the Bali Sea but does not label it. The Bali Sea is on the North side of Bali. The Indonesian archipelago which includes Bali is part of the boundary between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Java Sea is part of the Indian Ocean and the Bali Sea is part of the Pacific Ocean. So there is not a contradiction if the fake plane crash site is near Bali in the Pacific, not the Indian Ocean.
Fun to note that the map includes the city of Palu.

http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/paleo/ocean/node3.html

Bali Sea
A regional sea which is part of the Australasian Mediterranean Sea in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It is classified as a distinct sea for navigational purposes but is usually grouped with the Flores Sea for oceanographic purposes. It is centered at around 116 E and 8.5 S and is bordered by Bali and Sumbawa to the south and Madura to the west, and abuts the Java Sea to the north and the Flores Sea to the east. The Bali Sea covers an area of about 45,000 km and has a greatest depth of 1590 m. It is mostly underlain by a small trough extending to the west of the Flores Trough and is bound by sills to the south (the 200 m Bali Strait and the 220 m Lombok Strait) and by a narrow, 600 m deep passage connecting it to the Makassar Stait to the north.
The circulation and water mass properties are continuous with the contiguous Flores and Java Seas to the east and north, respectively. Most of the oceanographic interest in the Bali Sea is concerned with its role in the Indonesian throughflow of Pacific Ocean waters into the Indian Ocean, with most if not all of this flow passing through the aforementioned Bali and Lombok Straits. See Fairbridge (1966).

Thats great, use logic to describe the island full of polar bears, black smoke and pirate ships inland. I think when talking about Lost we should be dispensing with conventional wisdom, no?

We already know there is an issue with the location of the Island, we still have no idea whatsoever how a small plane taking off from Nigeria crashed into an Island in the South Pacific, this is impossible and could not happen. The moving island theory is an old one but cannot be discounted as it does make sense in relation to some of our mysteries.

I don't think there's any issue with the location of the island. Desmond's positioning, Rousseau's slightly rougher positioning, and the pilot's much rougher positioning, and the observed climate of the island, are all in agreement.

There's nothing impossible about a small plane taking off from Nigeria and crashing in the South Pacific. It would only require they make a number of hops to get there, and then there would be the question of why they would. The polar bears are there because Darma brought them there for research. The pirate ship could have been brought inland in a severe storm. Rouseau and Desmond's vessles were both brought to the island by storms.

The smoke monster is a different matter altogether, if we're going to assume that it really exists, and is not a halucination. But for the story to be any good, the writers are not going to make the explanations too far fetched, and are going to make it (once it is all understood) as plausible and grounded, in the context of the rules they've established, as possible. Therefore, I don't think we need to dispense with simple solutions for things because it is Lost. I think for a theory to have any chance of being correct it should use as few outlandish, implausible or supernatural devices as possible. In other word's the simpler it is, the more likely it is of being true.... as per Occam's Razor.
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Currently, I'm sticking to the theory that in no way could a plane venture that far off course without the pilot's, or the crew's for that matter, instincts kicking in. I'm not a pilot, but maybe somebody can back this up: Wouldn't a pilot have some general directional skills in the event a plane's navigational system goes haywire?
I agree. So that elliminates a plane headed from Sydney to LA ending up off Bali purely by accident.


So this leaves the theory that Naomi is either lying through her teeth or there is a large, coordinated media cover-up. If Naomi is indeed lying, she must have an agenda - either "Other"-related or Widmore-related. This seems to make the most sense; the media coverage would be so great, there would be an uproar over how in the world a plane could venture so far off course.
I think a smaller conspiracy to put a plane wreckage off the coast of bali, along with an explanation and trail of evidence for how it got there (such as hijacking), would be much more probable than the larger media conspiracy. (and more probable than naomi lying) Presumably Naomi knows the reported reason for how 815 allegedly ended up at Bali, we'll have to see if she happens to mention it in the rest of the season, or if someone gets currious enough about that to ask about it. They're probably more interested in her radio and her ship.


I'm hoping Sayid has processed this to some degree, because not one person in that tent seemed to catch this red flag. Nobody said "Bali? But that can't be right. We were heading to L.A. across the Pacific Ocean." Yet nobody spoke up. Hmm .......

So if someone said to you, "You can't be alive, I just saw a photo of your dead body lying in the Mohavi desert," your response would be "that can't be right because I've never been been to the Mohavi desert?" No, it would probably be more along the lines of "that can't be right because I'm obviously still alive."
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But i do have a theory that the real flight 815 did not crash on the Island anyway, i have been wondering lately about other things that could of happened during the flight. What about everyone on board the plane being drugged, gassed whatever and taken of the plane and somehow taken to the Island? I have no idea how this could have happened, but the alternative is also the single biggest mystery in lost.. How on earth could there be survivors from a plane breaking up in mid-air and crashing into the ocean/island so far below? It is impossible, there are never any survivors to these kinds of crashes.

It could well be that once taking all our losties from the plane (at say a remote airstrip in the middle of the Aussie outback and putting them on another plane for their trip to the Island) they replaced them with a bunch of corpses and crashed the real flight 815 into the sea off Bali.

Well, Kate at least thinks she remembers hearing (but not turning to look at) that back half of the plane coming apart. It's hard to believe that it was a set up for certain people to be survivors on the island, because in the aftermath of the crash, so many people died who just as easily could have lived, such as the marshal, and the guy who got sucked into the engine, and so many people lived, who could just have easily (or more easily) have died, such as Rose and Bernard. But the biggest arguement against this is that we saw the plane break apart from the perspective of the others.

A very simple explanation for why there were so many survivors of a plane that broke apart mid-air, could be that the same intense magnetic fields that broke the plane apart could have slowed the subsequent descent of the parts.
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Bali is 2,870 miles from Sydney, which is roughly a five hour trip heading west. The plane was heading northeast towards LA for 6 hours, which would be roughly 3000 miles due to the rotation of the earth slowing their progress slightly. (Which is why flights west are shorter than those heading east timewise.)

This would place the aircraft and bali roughly 5,000 miles apart when they turned around. Even heading west against the earths rotation, and exaggerating the speed of the plane immensly, it would never be closer than 3000 miles from Bali.


The atmosphere rotates along with the rest of the earth, so flying "with" or "against" the earth's rotation makes no difference whatsoever for flight within earth's atmosphere.. The reason why flying at high altitude in the U.S. takes longer east-to-west than it does west-to-east, is because you're flying through the jet stream, which always blows west-to-east. If you were flying at the equator (anywhere in the world) at high altitude, you would fly faster east-to-west instead, because at the equater the trades blow east-to-west.


Therefore, the crash in the Java trench, which is 4.8 miles deep is nothing more than a hoax to stop the search for the real flight 815. Now, the plane crashed in the daytime, so the ONLY explanation would be that they were flying west from the very start of the flight. Not sure how this helps, but Bali is impossible if we take the pilot at his word, theres no way it could crash there if they were on course for 6 hours and crashed 2 hours after turning around.

I think the stronger evidence is that when the pilot gave us this information he was not in fact under 4.8 miles of water. Therefore, the plane in Bali is a different plane, which presumably crashed at a different time.
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This places Bali completely in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific.

Which means Anthony Cooper and Naomi are contradicting themselves. Either one of them is lying or the writers made the same mistake you did, by placing Bali in the Pacific Ocean.

Actually it seems a lot more realistic for Cooper to say Pacific instead of Indian, since that's the ocean you fly over to get from Sydney to LA. I don't see him getting out the atlas to look it up, or even paying enough attention to note the actual geographical location of the wreckage.

Didn't the pilot in the, well, pilot episode say he thought they were over Fiji or near Fiji? You'd be able to tell you were going back over Australia and Indonesia just by looking out the window.

I don't know. I'm starting to think there's something fishy going on on this island.

I'm having flashbacks to a horrible bus incident on the Thanksgiving of 96 or 97? We took a bus from NYC to Boston (Peter Pan or Greyhound, not some fly-by-night company or the new discount lines) and they had all kinds of extra staff to cover the extra business. Well they sure picked the wrong driver!

Anyhow, most of the bus was asleep off and on because the drive was soooo long with all the traffic, etc and anytime I woke up (very unusual for me to sleep on a drive) I only saw the driver and maybe one other person awake at a time. The driver kept calling for new directions to deal with the traffic, etc. So eventually I woke for a few moments and saw us driving past the Boston Globe Offices and we were so close, blinked up later and saw the bus terminal from off the highway (with loads of fun, ever-shifting ramps to eventually lead you there from the highway) and was so relieved, but fell right back asleep. I know others saw it as I heard a few people getting happy to finally be there... but when I woke back up we were near Rhode Island! Everyone was coming to and hearing how we'd been right off the highway from the terminal and now were far from it! Needless to say, everyone was angry and it took quite a while before we got back to Boston!

Anyhow, somehow noone was awake and aware enough to notice the driver driving AWAY from our terminal when we'd been within eyeshot of it and then somehow over 40 minutes away from it (40 minutes if there was no traffic to contend with, not sure how many miles). So, if people were sleeping for part of the flight, etc, etc then they could easily have noone noticing... or even if the curtains were just pulled due to bright sunlight? If you aren't expecting anything to see but water, why stare out the windows?