The idea of the wreckage being staged isn't a new one, but it is a good question . . . . where DID Widmore find 324 dead bodies? I just assumed there wouldn't literally be 324 dead bodies, and didn't think they actually salvaged the wreckage. Thoughts?

The suggestion isn't that Widmore staged the crash but Ben.

Wasn't it mentioned that at some point that the crash site was too deep to be recovered? In that case the bodies might not need to be murder victims, after a few weeks in the water it would be hard to recognise anyone but they could still do dna tests. If they're sure no one will be able to examine the bodies Ben could have got the bodies from morgues, graves etc. Who knows, too many unanswered questions.

Regardless, where would one find 324 dead bodies?

Well...how many people were killed in the purge?

Well...how many people were killed in the purge?

That's a good though, but when Ben shot Locke last season, he landed in a pit where all the dead bodies from the purge currently rest.

Isn't a given that Oceanic is in on the staging of the crash too? I mean not only the 324 but the plane itself too. Ben staged the crash & I believe also brought the "real" plane down. Heck I don't know maybe they're 324 crash test dummies, John Doe's, medical research bodies, people Ben murdered & had frozen somewhere. Hope Virgin Mary Mold this is nuts!

Well...how many people were killed in the purge?

The Purge took place long ago and only skeletons remain of the bodies as Ben showed Locke.

The only thing I can think of is Widmore got the bodies from some sort of mass killing off-island? If so, I find it hard to believe that anyone can pull something like that off.

Ben is a man with acess to anything he needs or wants. I don't think it was hard for him to get the bodies.

Isn't a given that Oceanic is in on the staging of the crash too?

I don't think it's a given. There's no reason they would have to be involved, it's easy enough - given the other feats involved - to mock up a plane to look like an Oceanic plane, especially if you know the wreckage can't be recovered.

i thought since they were underwater, they really didnt need that number of bodies since they cant salvage them anyways

The only thing I can think of is Widmore got the bodies from some sort of mass killing off-island? .


Widmore is saying that BEN pulled off the fake wreckage.

i thought since they were underwater, they really didnt need that number of bodies since they cant salvage them anyways

True, even if they sent a camera into the wreckage to see the bodies I doubt they would expect to see them all, or that they would be recognisable. The only problem for Ben, or whoever, might be when they think to take DNA samples, but it looks like that didn't happen.

It seemed to me that Captain Gold (was it Gold?) believed there were 324 dead bodies. Literally. I too thought they could stage a few that would only need to be seen with underwater cameras. I'm assuming, based on what we've now seen in flash forwards, that there was an attempt at a search and recovery mission.

Very confused.

Widmore is saying that BEN pulled off the fake wreckage.

Thanks for clarifying. It does make sense that he would so nobody will accidently find the island.

But then again, we were told not to trust the captain.

Thanks for clarifying. It does make sense that he would so nobody will accidently find the island.

It's hard to tell though who exactly would do it..... Ben: so that no one would find the island or Widmore: so no one would find the island.

Perhaps they are the future dead bodies of the boat crew. Ben can bend time both ways, MWAHAHAHAHA!

:blowup:

:confused:

If Ben IS responsible, as I am sure Miles believes, it makes those comments just that much deeper, huh? "I know what you can do. Don't talk to me like I am one of them."

hmmmm

I have been saying this from the day Naomi said it

The bodies are real. That IS 815

After all you guys have seen. How many times do you have to be con'd before you get the paradigm:) Whatever theory the show presents is always wrong.

If they say----its obviously staged--you can bet your hat its not staged.

I have been saying this from the day Naomi said it

The bodies are real. That IS 815

After all you guys have seen. How many times do you have to be con'd before you get the paradigm:) Whatever theory the show presents is always wrong.

If they say----its obviously staged--you can bet your hat its not staged.

It's certainly possible. I wouldn't put it past the writers.

The crash was staged by Ben. Who knows where he got the bodies from but we all know he has a long reach. The plane would have been staged so that anyone looking would stop once it was found. The plane is too deep to recover. Samples from the bodies for DNA won't have been taken because they already knew who was on the plane and where they would have been sitting because of the manifest. The only thing that would have been recovered would have been the 2 black boxes in order to determine what happen before the plane crashed.

The same way they created 2 #15 rabbits at the Orchid.:eek2:

The same way they created 2 #15 rabbits at the Orchid.:eek2:

Ohhhhhhhh, Good Piont! Never thought of that!:eek2:

But wasn't one Rabbit a "present time" Rabbit and one was the Rabbits future self??? So one plane could be in the past (the wreckage) and our losties would be in the "present time" plane??? Did I get that right? I'm so confused. But I do think that senario could make sense---if I could wrap my head around it! LOL!

Must have been Goodwin's body X 247 then. :biggrin:

But remember... Frank said the pilot's body was NOT seth.. The wedding ring.. so its NOT real in that sense has to be fake bodies.. the details are wrong

I'm having a hard time believing some Illuminatti type group or power could produce over three hundred bodies, mostly Caucasian (couldn't just slaughter a third world villiage, well, maybe in parts of Eastern Europe), dress them up like pilots and crew and passengers, close enough to fool anyone who might send a video camera like Jim Cameron. And how did this entity/masonic lodge/alien race dump a plane mocked up just like Oceanic 815. I love this show, have never seen a show so brilliant, romantic and philosophical, but they're gonna have a hard time selling that. I've seen nothing Ben has done that leads me to think he or Jacob could do that, unless Jacob is just God and can blink and make anything happen, which is too Magic. Like God.

But I wait to be proved wrong.

It's quite simple really. The magic box pulled 324 dead bodies out of itself. Mikhail probably swam out to the Sunda Trench himself and placed the fake wreckage there with his bare hands.

I'm having a hard time believing some Illuminatti type group or power could produce over three hundred bodies, mostly Caucasian (couldn't just slaughter a third world villiage, well, maybe in parts of Eastern Europe), dress them up like pilots and crew and passengers, close enough to fool anyone who might send a video camera like Jim Cameron. And how did this entity/masonic lodge/alien race dump a plane mocked up just like Oceanic 815. I love this show, have never seen a show so brilliant, romantic and philosophical, but they're gonna have a hard time selling that. I've seen nothing Ben has done that leads me to think he or Jacob could do that, unless Jacob is just God and can blink and make anything happen, which is too Magic. Like God.

But I wait to be proved wrong.

Two words: Schrodinger's cat.

Cloned!!!!!

To fake the crash, Ben had to have access to an Oceanic plane that no one would miss, so I think Oceanic is "in" on it. I have been saying that the Oceanic logo is a picture of the island.

Where would one find 324 bodies... Hanso and his hospitals. Oh, wait, doesn't Hanso own Oceanic now?

Jacob or Smokey could easily conjure up some dead bodies :)

There have been several mentions of all 324 bodies being accounted for (one can assume they did this by underwater camera). So where do the Oceanic 6 fit into that? (+ the 2 others that survived the crash but died). Wouldn't that raise a red flag to someone they at one point all the bodies were accounted for, and bam, suddenly 8 new ones show up?

An explanation that explains everything, explains nothing. It's too weak to say Jacob/Ben can do anything. I don't just buy that Evil Big Capitalist White Man is The Debbil Hisseff. I will be so disappointed if that's the direction they're headed. Seems too simple an answer, although I believe they said the explanation would only be partially paranormal (Time Travel/Alternate Reality) and partially mystic. Maybe that's the mystic part.

Okay, I'm diving in a little too deep, but I love that this show sparks such dialogue.

But then again, we were told not to trust the captain.

Yes we were.
So no, I don't.

If they say----its obviously staged--you can bet your hat its not staged.

Okay, Doc. ;)

I am wondering if Marvin Candles is one of the 324 bodies?

In order to get the plane down there, Oceanic had to be in on it. As for the bodies, who knows...considering the entities we are talking about (Hanso, Oceanic, Ben) there could be a number of sources for dead bodies.
I'd think they'd notice if the bodies were all identical, so 324 Goodwins isn't really a viable solution. :D

Well Oceanic wouldn't have to be in on it; it wouldn't be so hard to adorn a plane with the appropriate logo.

I dont get this number discrepancy though. 324 + 8 = 332 though, so take that for its worth.

Well, whoever staged the wreckage didn't actually need 324 dead bodies because 324 people didn't make it through the crash. Weren't there only 42 survivors on the island? So, really, they only needed 42 more dead bodies. Still not easy, but way less difficult.

Well Oceanic wouldn't have to be in on it; it wouldn't be so hard to adorn a plane with the appropriate logo.
Right.
Frank, whom I believe on this point, identified Seth Norris (Greg Grunberg's character) as the Oceanic pilot. Norris ended up on the island, so that points away from Oceanic involvement in the Sudan wreckage.

I dont get this number discrepancy though. 324 + 8 = 332 though, so take that for its worth. Whether 324 or 332, it's a 100% fully loaded 777, and all the interior 815 footage we've seen of our Losties show lots of vacant seats.
Something's seriously amiss there.

remember the old oceanic web site? It looked like 2 planes left Sydney at the same time. If that was true than that would explain the plane and the bodies at the bottom of the ocean. Sadly I don't think that site works anymore. Actually I went there and could get it to work on internet explorer, When you start putting the numbers into the seating chart, the plane changes and says Oceanic 777.

remember the old oceanic web site? It looked like 2 planes left Sydney at the same time. If that was true than that would explain the plane and the bodies at the bottom of the ocean. Sadly I don't think that site works anymore.


oooooh!!!! good catch! i remember that!

An explanation that explains everything, explains nothing. It's too weak to say Jacob/Ben can do anything. I don't just buy that Evil Big Capitalist White Man is The Debbil Hisseff.

:rotflmao2: I totally agree. This show is too clever for that.

Well...how many people were killed in the purge?

That was my thoughts exactly! Why else would the grave had already been dug up and a bunch of bodies missing when he shot Locke?!

The only thing I can think of is that they were all skeletons, and the plane people for the fake wreck were still, well, fleshy?!

remember the old oceanic web site? It looked like 2 planes left Sydney at the same time. If that was true than that would explain the plane and the bodies at the bottom of the ocean. Sadly I don't think that site works anymore. Actually I went there and could get it to work on internet explorer, When you start putting the numbers into the seating chart, the plane changes and says Oceanic 777.

I'm pretty sure this was debunked as being a fan made site. It was at the center of a lot of theorizing for a while though.

yo you would get 324 dead bodies from alot of morgues or cementarys. i solved the mistory gimmie free stuff.

The crash was staged by Ben.

Says the captain, and who's to say he's not lying or has been lied to? Who's to say Widmore isn't the one who staged the crash, but tells the people on the freighter that it's Ben who did it.

The writers are setting it all up so we think Ben is the big bad here. They show us that he has ton's of money, and they make us believe he was going to gas everyone on the island again, but in reality Widmore wants to git rid of Ben because Ben's the only thing standing in the way of him gaining control of the island.

But then again, we were told not to trust the captain.

Yes we were.
So no, I don't.

We were told not to trust the captain.

By Ben.

As a person with 20+ years in aviation, something has bothered me since the
beginning of Lost. As depicted, no one could survive a breakup of an aircraft
of that size at that altitude. The tail is falling straight down from at least 2000
feet, while the rest would eventually do the same at high speed! Is this a clue?

Guess we know why all the hairbrushes disappeared now, huh?

So that would lead me to believe that Ben is going to give the hairs from the brushes, along with whatever other DNA he can gather as proof that the survivors are actually dead. I'm guessing he would be giving that proof to Oceanic so they can present it.

Something just feels wrong about this whole thing.

As a person with 20+ years in aviation, something has bothered me since the
beginning of Lost. As depicted, no one could survive a breakup of an aircraft
of that size at that altitude. The tail is falling straight down from at least 2000
feet, while the rest would eventually do the same at high speed! Is this a clue?

That's long been my thought as well. I clearly don't have your knowledge of aviation, but it looks like an unsurvivable crash. You also have to consider that Jack was found amongst some bamboo trees. Making his survival appear even less plausible.

-- J

I'm pretty sure this was debunked as being a fan made site. It was at the center of a lot of theorizing for a while though.

The same site that first revealed the name of the Marshal as "Edward Mars", a name not confirmed on the show until Season 3's "I Do"?

The old Oceanic site was real.

I don't necessarily think that it held a clue to solving this issue, though.

I know this'll most likely be shot down, but if you invert the crash "bodies" you get 423, which are two of the number in the Valenzetti Equation, Like a lot of things on the show.

It's possible the writers just try to fit the numbers in wherever they can, or maybe the numbers are somehow directly involved in everything they appear on/in? When Hurley used the numbers in the lottery he did exactly what the DI were trying to do (change the equation), is this all just course correction now?

Its not widmore who staged it.According to the captain its Ben.

Its not widmore who staged it.According to the captain its Ben.

I'll say it again...

Says the captain, and who's to say he's not lying or has been lied to? Who's to say Widmore isn't the one who staged the crash, but tells the people on the freighter that it's Ben who did it.

The writers are setting it all up so we think Ben is the big bad here. They show us that he has ton's of money, and they make us believe he was going to gas everyone on the island again, but in reality Widmore wants to git rid of Ben because Ben's the only thing standing in the way of him gaining control of the island.

I vote for: the bodies came from the future, kind of a body snatchers type thing.

According to The Lost Experience, there was a plan by the Hanso Foundation to inject a virus into some villagers somewhere under the ruse that some of the villagers were already infected by a virus and the injections was actually a vaccine. When the injected villagers died, the Foundation would simply claim the injections were not working. Widmore was working with the Foundation at that time.

I know ithat isn't cannon, but I suspect if you are looking for someone who could produce dead bodies then Hanso seems to be a likely candidate.

Two words: Schrodinger's cat.

Well, this just gave me a flashback to p-chem! :biggrin:

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it bothers me that anyone claimed to find an "account for" all the bodies. Why go to all that trouble? If anything, it makes the discovery suspicious.

When has a plane ever crashed in real life and all the bodies were accounted for? I mean, the ocean is full of scavengers...I would find it hard to believe that there were remains left of every single passenger. Not one single body was carried away by the currents? If I heard that claim in real life, I'd think it was crazy.

In real life, that's the kind of stuff that starts conspiracy theories. So did someone stage it to make the public believe they were all dead, or to make some people suspect they were still alive?

There have been several mentions of all 324 bodies being accounted for (one can assume they did this by underwater camera). So where do the Oceanic 6 fit into that? (+ the 2 others that survived the crash but died). Wouldn't that raise a red flag to someone they at one point all the bodies were accounted for, and bam, suddenly 8 new ones show up?

Yes, I keep thinking of this myself. So far, we've heard from both Naomi and The Captain (who, yes, yes, I know there was a note not to trust, but if the note came from Michael and Michael is Ben's man on the ship, we can't trust THAT, either) that ALL of the bodies were found in the wreckage. But if all of a sudden, 6 people show up, and say there were 8 who survived, wouldn't that raise questions about where their "body doubles" on the plane came from? Like, "Yeah, I know you found our bodies, but here we are anyway? No, not sure where the bodies that you thought were us came from... but hey!"

I always assumed the plane crash vics were a split timeline or something equally weird that didn't involve the killing of 324 people, actually. Because it's really hard to hide one body from a victim's family, let alone 324. What did they do, grab 324 homeless guys with no family or friends? People would still notice (especially cops and shelter workers in that area). Unless they were fake bodies? I hate this show. :redface:

What about the Economist? I've been suspicious of how Elsa answered Sayid when he asked what she does for her boss, the Economist. "All I do is...shop for him" That pause before she said "shop" and the emphasis that she put on the word made me think that she wasn't talking about running to the store for him, but shopping for 324 bodies? Maybe.

According to The Lost Experience, there was a plan by the Hanso Foundation to inject a virus into some villagers somewhere under the ruse that some of the villagers were already infected by a virus and the injections was actually a vaccine. When the injected villagers died, the Foundation would simply claim the injections were not working. Widmore was working with the Foundation at that time.

I know ithat isn't cannon, but I suspect if you are looking for someone who could produce dead bodies then Hanso seems to be a likely candidate.

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Lost_Experience


Carlton Cuse (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Carlton_Cuse): I think that for us, yeah, I mean, all of Alvar Hanso (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Alvar_Hanso) and his relationship with funding the DHARMA Initiative (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/DHARMA_Initiative) is part of the mythology. The details of the Hanso Foundation (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Hanso_Foundation)’s demise…it’s tangential to the show but it’s not unrelated to the show. We sort of felt like the Internet Experience was a way for us to get out mythologies that we would never get to in the show. I mean, because this is mythology that doesn’t have an effect on the character’s lives or existence on the island. We created it for purposes of understanding the world of the show but it was something that was always going to be sort of below the water, sort of the iceberg metaphor, and the Internet Experience sort of gave us a chance to reveal it.
Damon Lindelof (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Damon_Lindelof): I would say in terms of all the… background that we did, in terms of the Valenzetti equation (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Valenzetti_equation) and explaining the formation of the Hanso Foundation and doing the other films…we’d consider that stuff canon (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Canon) to the show. Where there’d have to be wiggle room is the Rachel Blake (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Rachel_Blake) story where she’s in the real world, in the outside world as we define it, the show Lost might be defined in an entirely different outside world so we can’t vouch for the overall fit ability and veracity of everything that Rachel was doing. But we can say that all the factoids that she was uncovering were vetted, in fact many of them were written by us personally so they are canon (http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Canon).

How do we know that those bodies are "real"?

Maybe they are mannequins.

How do we know that those bodies are "real"?

Maybe they are mannequins.
Do you not think someone would have noticed if they were mannequins?
It was obviously well funded and intended to fool most elements of the government etc.
Real bodies are a must.

Do you not think someone would have noticed if they were mannequins?
It was obviously well funded and intended to fool most elements of the government etc.
Real bodies are a must.

They were underwater, could you tell if they were real?

Do you not think someone would have noticed if they were mannequins?
It was obviously well funded and intended to fool most elements of the government etc.
Real bodies are a must.

Granted you need real bodies, where do you get 324 of them, the only way you could possibly come up with 324 dead people, go to 324 bug cities around the world and snatch a homeless person, am I a terrible person because I thought of that, I almost didn't post it, it seems so dark.

The thing about a "staged crash" is, when you stage something, you expect it to be found, otherwise, why bother. If whoever staged the crash wanted it to be found, why put it in the Indian ocean? In one of the deepest areas on earth? I mean, I can somewhat understand the "deep" part, if they didn't want the wreckage salvaged, but the Mariana trench is in the Pacific and would have been a more likely place for the plane to be found.

The thing about a "staged crash" is, when you stage something, you expect it to be found, otherwise, why bother. If whoever staged the crash wanted it to be found, why put it in the Indian ocean? In one of the deepest areas on earth? I mean, I can somewhat understand the "deep" part, if they didn't want the wreckage salvaged, but the Mariana trench is in the Pacific and would have been a more likely place for the plane to be found.
Don't you see, that's the ingenious part, there seems to be alot of Bens specialty, the ability to predict reactions, much like Sawyer just putting that outthere, that after a while of searching the noraml route to LA from Sydney, someone would say about the time the lost contact could they have turned around, and perahps have lost there instruments, and would make a search grid, starting at the point the plane lost contact, and drawing a circle the size of the distance the plane would have traveled with the amount of feul they had left, then Ben being the brillian man he is found a nice deep place which would be quite unusual to find the plane, and dropped it in. Winded I know but all very probable and if I might add somewhat logical.

If a guy who has that much power as Ben has, can come up with 3.2 million as easily in a week on an island tied to a chair, then I believe he can come up with 324 bodies.

Evidently I am in a minority on thinking about this issue, but I will try and explain my idea as clearly as possible. I think arguing over whether Widmore or Ben could stage such a ruse is irrelevant. I believe entire reason the captain went on about "how could Charles Widmore stage such a thing?" was to clue in us, as the audience,
that the found wreckage wasn't staged at all. But that there could be a radically different explanation.

I believe all the bodies were in fact the bodies of the real passengers. Furthermore, in the FF when Sun and Hurley visit Jin's grave, they are visiting an actual grave. Someone is actually buried there! I believe in 2004 the wreckage from the trench was salvaged, the bodies retrieved, identified, and given proper burials to whatever extent possible. You couldn't just get away with staging some replacement dead bodies. The skeletal and DNA evidence would be too much. You saw Sun actually grieving at this gravestone. I don't think this is just some memorial site for her, but actually where Jin is burried.

I believe that when the plane passed through the electromagnetic anomaly it was duplicated, and a second plane appeared far away over the Indian ocean and crashed, killing all on board. The folks on place #1 survived, well, because a lot of miraculous stuff happens on this island.

There is other evidence of things being duplicated and/or appearing elsewhere. Someone mentioned earlier the bunny duplicating in the Orchid. A polar bear appears in the desert. The Black Rock somehow got to the middle of the island.

I think we're going to see a lot more of people/thing duplicating coming up. For instance, in this episode the character Regina commits suicide by throwing herself off the boat. My mind immediately turns to the movie "The Prestige" where Hugh Jackman's character keeps duplicating and then killing himself. I think Regina is caught in a cycle of duplicating and will have to keep killing herself. I think the blood stain Michael is called in to clean up is from when a previous Regina blew her brain out earlier.

So the argument, for me, is not who dug up 300-odd bodies, but something much more important to the nature of the island and the show as a whole.

If Ben can pull anyone to the island he wants (i.e. Locke's Dad). How hard would it be to find 324 from 6.5 Billion people around the world? Come to think of it... I haven't seen the guy with the "Will Work For Food" sign in a while :)
100%
One last thought... Since the plane was never recovered. You don't have to stage the wreck... just the recovery. It's too convenient that the plane is too deep to salvage.

Staging 815 crash way too complicated, why do it, I believe the aircraft was duplicated
somehow by time/space issue. Oceanic 6 get off island but come to realize they have
to go back because they don't belong in the "real" world. Bodies on found 815 are the
passengers.

You know who knows where the 324 dead bodies came from? Miles!

That must be what his coded blackmail conversation with Ben was about. Miles wants a million dollars for every dead body: 3.2 million dollars. And that's why Ben said, "Why 3.2? Why not 3.3 or 3.4?"

Miles can talk to dead people, right? So I think the blackmail is real, because Miles can nail Ben on this. Or maybe it's not blackmail, but Miles was letting Ben know that someone on the outside knows that Ben is responsible for 324 deaths.

Does this sound plausible, the connection between 324 bodies and $3.2 million?

The thing about a "staged crash" is, when you stage something, you expect it to be found, otherwise, why bother. If whoever staged the crash wanted it to be found, why put it in the Indian ocean? In one of the deepest areas on earth? I mean, I can somewhat understand the "deep" part, if they didn't want the wreckage salvaged, but the Mariana trench is in the Pacific and would have been a more likely place for the plane to be found.

I have two thoughts
1. The plane crash was faked and the Christiane 1 was definitely meant to discover it.
2. Either it was done by Widmore, Hanso, or Ben, or a combination thereof.

What's the motive to fake the crash?
1. to keep the Losties on the island.
2. to keep others from continuing to look ... like SAM from Find 815

Who could pull it off
1. Paik
2. Ben
3. Widmore
4. Hanso

I have been saying this from the day Naomi said it

The bodies are real. That IS 815

After all you guys have seen. How many times do you have to be con'd before you get the paradigm:) Whatever theory the show presents is always wrong.

If they say----its obviously staged--you can bet your hat its not staged.

I think that would be awful story telling if they went in that direction but you may be right, especially after the whole "time traveling consciousness" stuff. :rolleyes:

Didn't the captain say that Widmore had gone to a lot of trouble to get the blackbox? I'm guessing he means the blackbox from the "faked" crash? Maybe there is evidence on this blackbox that proves the truth either way. I'm guessing the captain wouldn't have told Sayid and Desmond the crash was faked or shown them the blackbox if it didn't support his claims. However, the blackbox could've been faked.

Argh.

Well Ben could always did up some of the on Island bodies --- Boone, Shannon, Anna, Ecko, etc... plus did all the people he kidnapped from the list really show up in "the compound"? We know the kids and --- Cindy (the stewardess whatever her name was) but did everyone?

I wouldn't put anything past Ben. Including say putting an ad on the INTERNET. " The first 324 people who apply to this contest win an all expense paid vacation to a tropical island with a private resort. " If he chose correctly and smartly the 324 missing people might never be connected.

Isn't a given that Oceanic is in on the staging of the crash too? I mean not only the 324 but the plane itself too. Ben staged the crash & I believe also brought the "real" plane down. Heck I don't know maybe they're 324 crash test dummies, John Doe's, medical research bodies, people Ben murdered & had frozen somewhere. Hope Virgin Mary Mold this is nuts!
I'm torn. I agree that it seemed that the captain was alluding to it possibly being someone other than Widmore (but perhaps he doesn't know it wasn't Widmore and that alluding to might have just been for our benefit ... but I digress) but here's where I run into a snag. If it was Ben, then how could he have been positive that there would have been survivors? What purpose would he have to bring the plane down? To get Jack? There's no guarantee that he'd have survived the crash. But then it makes sense that Widmore would 1] know where island was, 2] know that Des was there, 3] not want it known there were survivors (including Desmond) and 4] definitely has the money and means to pull this off (and judging by that film of him beating on the guy, we now know that his evilness isn't limited to snide remarks over expensive liquor). Widmore would want people to stay away from the island (and rescue parties would ruin that if they knew where the crash occured) and, to me, he seems to have the most reason to stage the whole thing.

But I do recall Ben telling Jack that he could get off the island any time he wanted to, but then ... playing Devil's Advocate ... if he could, and did, why not just go off island and have his tumor treated? Surely with all his fake IDs he could go, check into a hosp. and have the surgery done and no one would have any idea who he was. And surely there are equally good surgeons out there besides Jack.

I think that would be awful story telling if they went in that direction but you may be right, especially after the whole "time traveling consciousness" stuff. :rolleyes:

I'm not sure why you think that would be "awful story telling". Since the issue of time rifts are now clearly part of the show, the explanation that the trench plane is the real 815 makes much more sense. I'm of the opinion that having one dude on an island be able to somehow fake a plane crash into the ocean complete with hundreds of dead bodies is far less plausible within the story line of Lost.

And just for fun, I'll restate my theory that Frank is the pilot of the plane down in the trench, and that's why there is no wedding ring on his finger.

I'm not sure why you think that would be "awful story telling". Since the issue of time rifts are now clearly part of the show, the explanation that the trench plane is the real 815 makes much more sense. I'm of the opinion that having one dude on an island be able to somehow fake a plane crash into the ocean complete with hundreds of dead bodies is far less plausible within the story line of Lost.

And just for fun, I'll restate my theory that Frank is the pilot of the plane down in the trench, and that's why there is no wedding ring on his finger.

Because for me it just gets more and more into the realm of the bizarre. But I get that others don't see it that way. We all have our own way of "seeing" LOST. ;)

I'm also not on board with the plane being faked by one person like Ben. I think the note saying don't trust the captain is our clue.

Because for me it just gets more and more into the realm of the bizarre. But I get that others don't see it that way. We all have our own way of "seeing" LOST. ;)

Fair enough. Let's just admit that there have been literally dozens of clues toward how to think about what's going on in this show. From the science fiction books and movies that are referenced, to the names and works of prominent physicists, to the Orchid video. If you don't think there is some time/space manipulation going on you are definitely swimming against the tide.

I still think it is a faked crash versus a cloned airplane full of people.

Look how many people Mittlewerk in TLE had working with him... talented smart scientists ready to give a disease to innocent people...all in the name of changing the Valenzetti equation. The greater good argument. People can be convinced to do things they normally wouldn't if they believe something good will come out of it... others (Miles) will do it for money.

I think that Ben has enough creepiness and money to fake a crash and I think he is working for someone else (Jacob/Hanso?) who has more money.

I just think it's a strange coincidence that the Christiane 1 belongs to Widmore and that it was the ship that discovered the wreckage when Sam Thomas was aboard (who happened to be looking for answers as to what happened to flight 815).

Also, Hanso owns Oceanic... I think they could pull it off. Hanso owns enough hospitals to collect the bodies...as long as the wreckage was deep enough, there would be no need to fear identification of the bodies.

If it were a cloned plane what made it crash and why did it crash so far away from the island?

Because for me it just gets more and more into the realm of the bizarre. But I get that others don't see it that way.I cherish the fact that Lost is going further and further into the bizarre.

I have a stupid question...
If there were 324 bodies in the staged crash, how does the public at large account for the extra bodies after the Oceanic 6 return?

Perhaps 'they' got the bodies from the same place that Body Works(?) exhibition was suspected of doing so - from the Chinese, who had a bunch of political prisoners to off-load. Might be the victims of some disease outbreak that 'they' happened to be in charge of cleaning up (after starting). Told the locals they'd burnt the bodies but really...
Then there's always Ebay.

I'm on the side of the duplicate plane idea -- actually from the beginning, I thought there were two planes, and I pretty much got booed off the island, so to speak.

Anway, it seems much more probable to me that the plane that went into the water is the "real" Flight 815 and our survivors on the island are either from another time line, or exist as a result of a split of some sort that occurred when the plane passed through an anomaly of some kind (sorry, I'm not a scific junkie nor a physicist, so I don't know the right terminology). Given the universe of "Lost" it makes more sense to me than Ben or Widmore planting 324 corpses in a plane to hide the island. If a plane went down in the middle of the ocean, I would assume everyone was dead. Wouldn't you? Why plant a plane that is, for all intents and purposes intact with 324 intact bodies? Wouldn't it be easier and just as effective to plant debris floating in the water?

I don't think Ben is "the big bad", nor do I think Widmore is. Ben is seemingly able to leave and return to the island whenever he wants to. However, if that were true, why did he need to have Jack do his surgery? He could surely have found someone else in the world who was capable. There are other spinal surgeons -- one of whom might have come to the island willingly, ala Juliet, if given the right story. So is he really so free to come and go? And Widmore? I have a sneaking suspicion (which will surely be proved wrong as so many of mine are) that his reasons for trying to find the island are more personal -- like maybe Penny is sick and Widmore hopes the island can cure her.

Hollywood prop division.

I'm on the side of the duplicate plane idea -- actually from the beginning, I thought there were two planes, and I pretty much got booed off the island, so to speak.

Well, in this regard, at least, you can probably feel vindicated. I too never gave credence at all to the crackpot alternate dimension/timeline theories.

If so, I find it hard to believe that anyone can pull something like that off.very hard to believe indeed

I have been saying this from the day Naomi said it
The bodies are real. That IS 815 After all you guys have seen. How many times do you have to be con'd before you get the paradigm:) Whatever theory the show presents is always wrong.If they say----its obviously staged--you can bet your hat its not staged.

The same way they created 2 #15 rabbits at the Orchid.:eek2: Looks like we're heading down that path to me too.

But remember... Frank said the pilot's body was NOT seth.. The wedding ring.. so its NOT real in that sense has to be fake bodies.. the details are wrongBecause I don't believe the wreckage was staged, I choose to think there is some other explanation for the ring...I don't necessarily think the same exact 815 is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean..somewhere/somehow a detail was thrown off and that has something to do with two 815's existing in different places.

Well, whoever staged the wreckage didn't actually need 324 dead bodies because 324 people didn't make it through the crash. Weren't there only 42 survivors on the island? So, really, they only needed 42 more dead bodies. Still not easy, but way less difficult.Pay attention!:biggrin:

I always assumed the plane crash vics were a split timeline or something equally weird that didn't involve the killing of 324 people, actually. Because it's really hard to hide one body from a victim's family, let alone 324. What did they do, grab 324 homeless guys with no family or friends? People would still notice (especially cops and shelter workers in that area). Unless they were fake bodies? I hate this show. :redface:Isn't it great to find out that you're not alone in your thinking.

Evidently I am in a minority on thinking about this issue, but I will try and explain my idea as clearly as possible. I think arguing over whether Widmore or Ben could stage such a ruse is irrelevant. I believe entire reason the captain went on about "how could Charles Widmore stage such a thing?" was to clue in us, as the audience,
that the found wreckage wasn't staged at all. But that there could be a radically different explanation.

I believe all the bodies were in fact the bodies of the real passengers. Furthermore, in the FF when Sun and Hurley visit Jin's grave, they are visiting an actual grave. Someone is actually buried there! I believe in 2004 the wreckage from the trench was salvaged, the bodies retrieved, identified, and given proper burials to whatever extent possible. You couldn't just get away with staging some replacement dead bodies. The skeletal and DNA evidence would be too much. You saw Sun actually grieving at this gravestone. I don't think this is just some memorial site for her, but actually where Jin is burried.

I believe that when the plane passed through the electromagnetic anomaly it was duplicated, and a second plane appeared far away over the Indian ocean and crashed, killing all on board. The folks on place #1 survived, well, because a lot of miraculous stuff happens on this island.

There is other evidence of things being duplicated and/or appearing elsewhere. Someone mentioned earlier the bunny duplicating in the Orchid. A polar bear appears in the desert. The Black Rock somehow got to the middle of the island. ..I think we're going to see a lot more of people/thing duplicating coming up. ...So the argument, for me, is not who dug up 300-odd bodies, but something much more important to the nature of the island and the show as a whole.
Great thoughts. Didn't agree with the Regina story, but I'm on board with the rest. IMO The Orchid, Black Rock, and Polar Bear all hold clues (or explanations) regarding the wreckage.
I think that would be awful story telling if they went in that direction but you may be right, especially after the whole "time traveling consciousness" stuff. :rolleyes: Gathering up more than 300 corpses ain't that great either;)

I'm on the side of the duplicate plane idea -- actually from the beginning, I thought there were two planes, and I pretty much got booed off the island, so to speak.....Anway, it seems much more probable to me that the plane that went into the water is the "real" Flight 815 and our survivors on the island are either from another time line, or exist as a result of a split of some sort that occurred when the plane passed through an anomaly of some kind (sorry, I'm not a scific junkie nor a physicist, so I don't know the right terminology). Given the universe of "Lost" it makes more sense to me than Ben or Widmore planting 324 corpses in a plane to hide the island. If a plane went down in the middle of the ocean, I would assume everyone was dead. Wouldn't you? Why plant a plane that is, for all intents and purposes intact with 324 intact bodies? Wouldn't it be easier and just as effective to plant ebris floating in the water
you're right, your thinking is not too popular, but I'm with you on it.

As a person with 20+ years in aviation, something has bothered me since the
beginning of Lost. As depicted, no one could survive a breakup of an aircraft
of that size at that altitude. The tail is falling straight down from at least 2000
feet, while the rest would eventually do the same at high speed! Is this a clue?

Maybe Smokie cushioned its fall. Back to the whole,it was their destiny to be there...I think the Island wanted/needed our Losties to survive. The Island was growing tired of Ben and smited him with a tumor. I think, the Island wanted to repopulate and get rid of Ben. Or if not the Island then the Dharma/Hanso group (not Widmore).

As a person with 20+ years in aviation, something has bothered me since the
beginning of Lost. As depicted, no one could survive a breakup of an aircraft
of that size at that altitude. The tail is falling straight down from at least 2000
feet, while the rest would eventually do the same at high speed! Is this a clue?

I don't remember the episode, or who said it, but the gist of it was, the plane fell apart, we rolled, front over end over front over end, and we survived. This isn't normal. Something to that effect. The island has it's own personality. It could explain Jack in pilot 1 laying in bamboo. Whatever analyzing is done, the bottom line, it's a TV show, and it's not what would happen in real life. It does make good TV.

Maybe Smokie cushioned its fall. Back to the whole,it was their destiny to be there...I think the Island wanted/needed our Losties to survive. The Island was growing tired of Ben and smited him with a tumor. I think, the Island wanted to repopulate and get rid of Ben. Or if not the Island then the Dharma/Hanso group (not Widmore).
Stick with the fate and destiny element NOT belonging to any person or group, and I'm on board. This was destiny. The Island wanted these people and now it wants them back.

Stick with the fate and destiny element NOT belonging to any person or group, and I'm on board.
;)
I think someone or some group got the main Losties on the plane and it was headed for The Island or a nearby Island. But Des not pushing the buttons caused it to crash the way it did. Then, I think Smokie being the "right hand man" of the Island,saved the Losties because the Island needed them. So I guess, I'm saying it was a combo of Fate and a group of people. I'm both a woman of faith and science! :hypocrit:
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I don't remember the episode, or who said it, but the gist of it was, the plane fell apart, we rolled, front over end over front over end, and we survived. This isn't normal. Something to that effect. The island has it's own personality. It could explain Jack in pilot 1 laying in bamboo. Whatever analyzing is done, the bottom line, it's a TV show, and it's not what would happen in real life. It does make good TV.
Yep! Smokie or Christian(maybe even both if they are one and the same) saved Jack and placed him there safely.

;)
I think someone or some group got the main Losties on the plane and it was headed for The Island or a nearby Island. But Des not pushing the buttons caused it to crash the way it did. Then, I think Smokie being the "right hand man" of the Island,saved the Losties because the Island needed them. So I guess, I'm saying it was a combo of Fate and a group of people. I'm both a woman of faith and science! :hypocrit:
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Yep! Smokie or Christian(maybe even both if they are one and the same) saved Jack and placed him there safely.

Can you explain to me, or show me threads, where Christian is an important person in the story? I've seen this stated several times, and I just don't get the Christian connection. All he was was a drunk doctor. Thanks much in advance!

Can you explain to me, or show me threads, where Christian is an important person in the story? I've seen this stated several times, and I just don't get the Christian connection. All he was was a drunk doctor. Thanks much in advance!

Well, for one thing, in the first episode of this season Hurley (not Jack) sees Christian sitting in Jacob's cabin (http://bp1.blogger.com/_RrObyQ3XzcY/R6LnpcBE0DI/AAAAAAAAShI/C3q9ehqDpEI/s1600-h/DarkUFOImage2919.jpg). He's supposed to be dead, but there he is, hanging out in the spook lounge with Jacob and who knows what other ghosties are bumping around the Island! LOL!

Because I don't believe the wreckage was staged, I choose to think there is some other explanation for the ring...I don't necessarily think the same exact 815 is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean..somewhere/somehow a detail was thrown off and that has something to do with two 815's existing in different places.

Frank's only reason for believing it wasn't Seth was the lack of a wedding ring, wasn't it? Who's to say that the day before the flight left, Seth and his wife didn't decide to get a divorce? Or that Seth took the ring in to be re-sized because he'd gained or lost weight? I think it's a red herring, and that it is, indeed, Seth.

you're right, your thinking is not too popular, but I'm with you on it.

Thank you. As far as I can surmise, there would be no reason at all to stage such an elaborate hoax, when some well-placed debris would accomplish the same thing.

Well, for one thing, in the first episode of this season Hurley (not Jack) sees Christian sitting in Jacob's cabin (http://bp1.blogger.com/_RrObyQ3XzcY/R6LnpcBE0DI/AAAAAAAAShI/C3q9ehqDpEI/s1600-h/DarkUFOImage2919.jpg). He's supposed to be dead, but there he is, hanging out in the spook lounge with Jacob and who knows what other ghosties are bumping around the Island! LOL!

Thanks! I completely missed this! I knew there was a person in his cabin. I didn't realize it was Christian.

Edit:

So, is Christian Jacob? Is that why the physic was all weird on Claire? Do you remember what episode that was so I can read up on this? I hate to rehash an old topic.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it bothers me that anyone claimed to find an "account for" all the bodies. Why go to all that trouble? If anything, it makes the discovery suspicious.

When has a plane ever crashed in real life and all the bodies were accounted for? I mean, the ocean is full of scavengers...I would find it hard to believe that there were remains left of every single passenger. Not one single body was carried away by the currents? If I heard that claim in real life, I'd think it was crazy.

In real life, that's the kind of stuff that starts conspiracy theories. So did someone stage it to make the public believe they were all dead, or to make some people suspect they were still alive?

Well...I've kinda thought that maybe the conspiracy has been revealed to the public already at the point of the flashforwards...that they were not only the survivors of a crash, but were also the direct victims of some corporate conspiracy.

The reason I thought this was because of the whole underwater footage, and the announcement that 815 had been found in the trench of Bali (Indian Ocean). By the time Jack testifies in Kate's trial, presumably several months later, the judge and jury take it as a now accepted fact that the crash took place on an island in the Pacific, as Jack testifies.

It's just a thought, but to me, that makes the story of our Losties all the more interesting.

I have a stupid question...
If there were 324 bodies in the staged crash, how does the public at large account for the extra bodies after the Oceanic 6 return?

I was thinking the same thing. Does someone remember Jack's description of the "kate hero" story at the trial? I seem to remember that he said there were 8 or 9 of them and that Kate was instrumental in saving them (the 6).

So... someone mentioned earlier that the count on the plane should have been 332 (8 more than 324). Is there a connection?

Well...I've kinda thought that maybe the conspiracy has been revealed to the public already at the point of the flashforwards...that they were not only the survivors of a crash, but were also the direct victims of some corporate conspiracy.

The reason I thought this was because of the whole underwater footage, and the announcement that 815 had been found in the trench of Bali (Indian Ocean). By the time Jack testifies in Kate's trial, presumably several months later, the judge and jury take it as a now accepted fact that the crash took place on an island in the Pacific, as Jack testifies.

It's just a thought, but to me, that makes the story of our Losties all the more interesting.

Don't forget, Frank calls and says that's not the pilot.

Two words: Schrodinger's cat.

Not. Is not the same plane, is a totally fake plane, remember frank lapidus comment

Maybe all the dead bodies were from the 'Spider Protocol' that they showed in the Lost Experience video. Mittlewerk and Co. were killing people in Sri Lanka to test one of the factors in the Valenzetti equation. Assuming he's still working for Hanso's company in some form, Widmore could have gotten in touch with him for dead bodies.

Can you explain to me, or show me threads, where Christian is an important person in the story? I've seen this stated several times, and I just don't get the Christian connection. All he was was a drunk doctor. Thanks much in advance!
He is Jack AND Claire's father.
He is the reason Jack was on the plane.
He was the reason Ana Lucia was on the plane.
He's met Sawyer in a bar in Austrailia and told him how proud of his son he was.
Missing Pieces clip where an on island CS sends Vincent to help out Jack b/c he has "work to do"
His coffin was found empty post crash.
His apparition has appeared to both Kate and Jack.
Jack somehow thinks "if only for a minute" CS is still alive in 2007
and the most important he's a guest of Jacob's.

He is Jack AND Claire's father.
He is the reason Jack was on the plane.
He was the reason Ana Lucia was on the plane.
He's met Sawyer in a bar in Austrailia and told him how proud of his son he was.
Missing Pieces clip where an on island CS sends Vincent to help out Jack b/c he has "work to do"
His coffin was found empty post crash.
His apparition has appeared to both Kate and Jack.
Jack somehow thinks "if only for a minute" CS is still alive in 2007
and the most important he's a guest of Jacob's.

WOO HOO!! AMEN TO THAT!!!
I think he is going to be incredibly important in the result of this show!!
GOOD JOB!!! :]

WOO HOO!! AMEN TO THAT!!!
I think he is going to be incredibly important in the result of this show!!
GOOD JOB!!! :]
I second that emotion!!!
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Thanks! I completely missed this! I knew there was a person in his cabin. I didn't realize it was Christian.

Edit:

So, is Christian Jacob? Is that why the physic was all weird on Claire? Do you remember what episode that was so I can read up on this? I hate to rehash an old topic.
Could very well be!
Jacob from the Bible was a Biblical Patriarch and Christian is the father to at least 2 Losties. I have a feeling ole Christian is gonna have ties to maybe even biological ties to other Lost Charcaters.

Iono, I suppose if Saddam can magically make many weapons of mass destruction "disappear", certainly someone like Ben or whoever can make hundreds of dead bodies "reappear".

:rolleyes:

It's quite simple really. The magic box pulled 324 dead bodies out of itself. Mikhail probably swam out to the Sunda Trench himself and placed the fake wreckage there with his bare hands.


Ok, this made me LOL !

My guess is that after he took over the island, Ben used its power to take over the rest of Hanso corp as well, or put his people in charge of it. So I'm guessing he got the dead bodies from some of their many 3rd world hospitals and/or a sri lanka-like "experiment" on some village no one would miss.

I don't think it would be hard to get the bodies. Any war-torn country has an excess of them.

I don't think it would be hard to get the bodies. Any war-torn country has an excess of them.

Remember, Lapidus spots the fake-out because the corpse of the "pilot" isn't wearing a wedding ring. If it took a detail that specific, we have to assume that the bodies are somewhat close in appearance to the actual passengers of O-815. Most likely, strapped into Kate's seat is a dead young white woman; representing Claire is an even younger, very pregnant one; faux Rose and fake Bernard are of their expected ethnicities. After all, if the wreckage wasn't expected (meant?) to be found, why even bother to fill the plane up... well, for that matter, why even bother to ditch a fake 815 in the first place?

To emphasize my point: If tomorrow a guy strapped dynamite to his chest, stormed the set of "Are You Smarter Than An Anglepoise Lamp" and blew himself to Kingdom Come on live TV in front of everyone in America, they'd STILL do an autopsy on his remains (go figure). Using that same logic, if that planted wreckage was stocked with dead Cambodians, you KNOW the switcheroo would be discovered. And as you imply with your statement, white people's lives are "worth" a lot more than others on this big marble of ours, so harvesting over 300 of them would be a truly massive undertaking (pardon the pun).

Granted, it's possible that the plan was to have the plane discovered after the bodies had more time to degenerate... but even if that was the case why bother with collecting such fresh ones?

- mnw
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Then there's always Ebay.

I know you're joking, but Ebay has established a clear policy of not allowing auctions of bodies or body parts.

(What you're supposed to be thinking here is "Wait -- why did they have to do that?" And you don't want to know the answer.)

- mnw

Iono, I suppose if Saddam can magically make many weapons of mass destruction "disappear", certainly someone like Ben or whoever can make hundreds of dead bodies "reappear".

:rolleyes:

Aah . . . with this line of logic then, the 324 bodies really didn't exist! :biggrin:

I second that emotion!!!
100%

Could very well be!
Jacob from the Bible was a Biblical Patriarch and Christian is the father to at least 2 Losties. I have a feeling ole Christian is gonna have ties to maybe even biological ties to other Lost Charcaters.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I agree with this. Everyone on the island has 'Daddy issues'.

And the 324 dead bodies? .... the box Ben told Locke about. :eek2:

Y'know... It just suddenly struck me -- here we are asking "How in the heck could Ben Linus manage to come up with a whole bunch of fresh dead bodies?" after we just watched an episode centering around a big ol' boat full of people who are out to get Ben... all dutifully engaged in the business of KILLING THEMSELVES!!!

- mnw

Y'know... It just suddenly struck me -- here we are asking "How in the heck could Ben Linus manage to come up with a whole bunch of fresh dead bodies?" after we just watched an episode centering around a big ol' boat full of people who are out to get Ben... all dutifully engaged in the business of KILLING THEMSELVES!!!

- mnw

We're asking that, because it's basically a direct quote from Captain Gault . . . "Where do you find 324 bodies?"

It seems to me though that you're right - there isn't a shortage of bodies in Ben's world!

He didn't need 324 bodies. Ben, or whoever 'staged' the Bali crash site, might have only needed 324 - 'amount of passengers that survived the crash'. As far as I remember, approximately 50 people survived the crash, so Ben really needed around 50 corpses. THAT is a much easier amount to get.

Now, as for the plane, that is the REAL Flight 815 except for the cockpit, which is still on the island.

So Ben might have (or not;)) moved the 2 pieces of the plane washed off the shore into the ocean over to the Bali crash site together with the 274 original dead passengers inside.
Then he managed to get a 'spare' cockpit from another oceanic plane and sank it down there together with the TWO original parts. That is why the plane is split in THREE, just like the real one.
The only thing left to do was to put some 50 corpses inside the plane to make it exactly 324 passengers. One of them was the pilot that Frank identified as not being the real pilot.

BTW, the black box is the REAL one....;)

You know, now I'm curious about that black box.

If the good ol' captain was nice enough to bring out for show and tell, you'd think maybe Sayid at least would have asked if there was anything on it that corroborated with Gault's statement that the plane wreckage was faked.

Now, as for the plane, that is the REAL Flight 815 except for the cockpit, which is still on the island...So Ben might have (or not;)) moved the 2 pieces of the plane washed off the shore into the ocean over to the Bali crash site together with the 274 original dead passengers inside....Then he managed to get a 'spare' cockpit from another oceanic plane and sank it down there together with the TWO original parts. That is why the plane is split in THREE, just like the real one.
The only thing left to do was to put some 50 corpses inside the plane to make it exactly 324 passengers. One of them was the pilot that Frank identified as not being the real pilot. ....;)
Can you really see this playing out and being part of the Lost story???IMO you've done better in the past (without tt'ing)

Remember the wreckage is not near Bali, it is in the Indian Ocean near the Sunda Trench. For some reason I think this detail will turn out to be important.

The plane in the trench is a duplicate of the real 815. Not a faked flight, but a duplicate created by some space/time rift involving the physics issues the show is exploring. You may dismiss this out of hand if you wish, but as the Magic 8 Ball says "All signs point to 'Yes'".

Let's remember back to our first view of the freighter crew. Charlotte, Daniel, and Lapidus all reacted in strange ways to the news that 815 had been found. Even Naomi fits into the pattern.

Naomi, when meeting with Abbaddon about her mission, asks what they should do if they encounter survivors from flight 815. Considering all of the other "flashbacks" in this episode contain the breaking news that Flight 815 has just been found, I think it can be safely assumed that Naomi's "flashback" occurs at the same time. So why is she questioning whether there are survivors? Even after Abbaddon forcefully confirms that there were none? Because she had been on the island before "in the future", and now was back in the past with only the slightest recognition that she had been on the island before and met the survivors.

Charlotte too was incredulous. No matter how many reports she read, she didn't believe that was flight 815. Why? Because she had been on the island before "in the future", and was now back in the past with only the slightest recognition that she had been there before. She didn't quite know why she didn't believe it, but she didn't, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Daniel also had a strange reaction, crying for seemingly no reason at the news of the 815 finding. Why? Because he had been on the island before "in the future", and was now back in the past with only the slightest recognition that he had been there before. His personality would naturally react the way that it did, even if he didn't have any overt memories of our Losties.

And Frank, like Charlotte, also believes for some reason that the discovered 815 is not quite right. Why? Well, he says because of the absence of the wedding ring on the pilot. And he's right. But that is seemingly a rather small detail to make one so sure that a crashed aircraft is not real. Frank too has been on the island "before". And in fact, in the alternate timeline that creates the second plane, I believe that Frank makes that flight and pilots it. But the universe course corrects, and ends up crashing it into the bottom of the ocean in order to prevent some massive paradoxes. I believe Frank is actually looking at himself on television in the pilot's seat in the recovered airplane.

Aah . . . with this line of logic then, the 324 bodies really didn't exist! :biggrin:
BWHAHAAHA

If time travel enters into this ( and it really looks as though it does), does anyone remember a cheap movie from the 80's called Millenium? Sterile time travelers from the future were body-snatching living, healthy humans from our time to keep the race alive, and replacing them with dead bodies. They were doing this time-travel switcheroo on, of all places, airliners that were about to crash. Makes you kinda wonder...

Hollywood prop division.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I keep thinking the whole time I've been reading this thread that we saw what looked like a darn good recreation of plane reckage while Frank was watching it on TV and saying that wasn't his friend's body down there.

First, I don't believe that Ben is the one who staged it. It believe it is Widmore. And someone please tell me if Widmore went through so much trouble to retrieve that black box, why is it now on the freighter? That, right there, seems off to me. Wouldn't they have it being analyzed for whatever information they could get from it as to why this plane went down? That just seemed weird to me.

As far as the staged reckage, a TV/movie production company mocking up a plane complete with the Oceanic logo and 324 "dead bodies" would be a no brainer. I think Widmore paid someone to mock the whole thing up and they dumped it in a place where it could never be salvaged because it was so deep. It could be photographed, but never salvaged. How convienent. This is why the details could have been wrong and Frank picked up that the body that was claimed to be the pilot was definitely not his friend.

The plane in the trench is a duplicate of the real 815. Not a faked flight, but a duplicate created by some space/time rift involving the physics issues the show is exploring. ...... But the universe course corrects, and ends up crashing it into the bottom of the ocean in order to prevent some massive paradoxes.
great job. i'm with you on a real other 815. don't have my own specific theory as to why other than my sense being that a staged wreck is "?" and with so much in the way of TT and other sci/sci-fi issues, I believe the tie in would be fitting.

I like your take...run with it.

He didn't need 324 bodies. Ben, or whoever 'staged' the Bali crash site, might have only needed 324 - 'amount of passengers that survived the crash'. As far as I remember, approximately 50 people survived the crash, so Ben really needed around 50 corpses. THAT is a much easier amount to get.

Now, as for the plane, that is the REAL Flight 815 except for the cockpit, which is still on the island.
Isn't the fuselage still on the beach? Anyway, they burned all the bodies in the fuselage.
100%
Y'know... It just suddenly struck me -- here we are asking "How in the heck could Ben Linus manage to come up with a whole bunch of fresh dead bodies?" after we just watched an episode centering around a big ol' boat full of people who are out to get Ben... all dutifully engaged in the business of KILLING THEMSELVES!!!
That's true. It reminds me of one of the creepier Steven King novels. Where some ancient demon went to an isolated fishing island, and got into the people's heads and made them kill themselves one after another. He demanded they give one of their children to him to raise up to be his successor, or else he would make the entire population walk of the end of a pier and drown themselves.

Oh, and in drawing the lots to determine which of their children to give him, he gave them a bag of black and white "weirding stones" to use.
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Remember the wreckage is not near Bali, it is in the Indian Ocean near the Sunda Trench. For some reason I think this detail will turn out to be important.
It is near Bali. It's in the Sunda Trench right off Bali.

Do we know someone legit actually found the wreckage or was that all staged footage? It could have been shot on any Hollywood back lot since the story is the plane is too far down in a deep trench to be salvaged, no one could ever count or recover the bodies. Did an independent source ever verify the story?

You know, now I'm curious about that black box.

If the good ol' captain was nice enough to bring out for show and tell, you'd think maybe Sayid at least would have asked if there was anything on it that corroborated with Gault's statement that the plane wreckage was faked.
I'd be very curious what the black box showed as well, as it might indicate HOW the wreckage was faked, and, I suppose, IF it was faked. However, for Sayid, there is no question that the wreckage was faked, seeing as he is still alive.

The odd thing is why it would be on the freighter. They aren't the recovery vessel. Maybe the recovery vessel handed it off to them to take back to Widmore. I seems unlikely there would be any equipment on the freighter capable of reading it.
100%
As far as the staged reckage, a TV/movie production company mocking up a plane complete with the Oceanic logo and 324 "dead bodies" would be a no brainer. I think Widmore paid someone to mock the whole thing up and they dumped it in a place where it could never be salvaged because it was so deep. It could be photographed, but never salvaged. How convienent. This is why the details could have been wrong and Frank picked up that the body that was claimed to be the pilot was definitely not his friend.

To be a convincing fake, it needs to stand up to scrutiny no matter how many times people send rovers down to look at it. The bodies need to deteriorate over time, get eaten by fish, and eventually become skeletons, and look convincing at every stage in between. That's pretty hard to do without real bodies. It's definitely beyond the know-how of a production company.

Isn't the fuselage still on the beach? Anyway, they burned all the bodies in the fuselage.

It was washed off the shore in season 1. Like I said both main parts of the plane are already in the water. No need for Ben to look further. Why not use the real plane instead of getting another one???
This way the fake will be a lot more convincing. The 'fake' crash is already 66% real.

As for the bodies....

Well, yes, they were burned...But they were also in a terrible plane crash. Perhaps the plane exploded in the middle of the air because some terrorist put a bomb on it...
That is why it was broken in 3 pieces...That is why it was found so far away from the 'original route'. It was hijacked.

That, of course, might have been the original explanation or plan that Ben and company thought of and tried to sell it to the media....

Until the Oceanic 6 surfaced....
100%
Can you really see this playing out and being part of the Lost story???IMO you've done better in the past (without tt'ing)

Remember the wreckage is not near Bali, it is in the Indian Ocean near the Sunda Trench. For some reason I think this detail will turn out to be important.

Yes, I can. Mostly because, well, it IS LOST! Evertyhing is possible on this show. We all should know that by now.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is (HAS TO BE) some twist regarding the Bali crash. Something that most people won't be quite expecting. But, thanks anyways!;)


And, by the way, Bali IS like 100-200 miles from where the Christiane I found the plane....

It is near Bali. It's in the Sunda Trench right off Bali.
my bad. was thinking of Fiji, that's where they think they are right? anyhow, meant to say the that the near Bali, Indian Ocean, location is important.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I agree with this. Everyone on the island has 'Daddy issues'.

And the 324 dead bodies? .... the box Ben told Locke about. :eek2:
Howdy Dark Horse! I'm glad you agree with my Christian Sheppard connection!
So either Jacob or Christian is Big Daddy! lol

Like I said both main parts of the plane are already in the water. No need for Ben to look further. Why not use the real plane instead of getting another one???
This way the fake will be a lot more convincing. The 'fake' crash is already 66% real.
The plane broke into a ton of pieces, not just three large ones. There was wreckage from the fuselage all over the beach, and some of it is still being used for shelters. From what I remember, the plane in the sea was largely intact.

The plane broke into a ton of pieces, not just three large ones. There was wreckage from the fuselage all over the beach, and some of it is still being used for shelters. From what I remember, the plane in the sea was largely intact.
FLight 815 broke into THREE main pieces. That is a fact. The plane down the SUnda Trench was also split in 3.

FLight 815 broke into THREE main pieces. That is a fact. The plane down the SUnda Trench was also split in 3.

Initially, yes. But some of it blew up while on the island, and much of it was scavenged.

Initially, yes. But some of it blew up while on the island, and much of it was scavenged.
That's why I said "main" pieces...;)
The fact that there are a couple of seats over there, a window over here, a small piece of wing or turbine still on the island near the main crash sites, doesn't make a big difference. Most of the fuselage and the tail as BIG pieces are not on the island anymore.

my bad. was thinking of Fiji, that's where they think they are right?
Yup. Des thinks they're about 2,000 km east of Fiji, which also puts them a couple days from Tahiti, which jibes with what Danielle said.

It was washed off the shore in season 1. Like I said both main parts of the plane are already in the water. No need for Ben to look further. Why not use the real plane instead of getting another one???
This way the fake will be a lot more convincing. The 'fake' crash is already 66% real.
I don't remember it washing away, I just remember them moving to a different beach. But assuming it did, I think we saw both engines and wings explode in the pilot. We saw at least one wing, with its engine still intact in the faked wreckage. So that's at the very least the front section, and the wings and engines that Ben is going to have to procure elsewhere. Doesn't seem to be much point in fishing out the tail and middle section of the original, when he's going to need another plane for the other parts anyway.

As for the bodies.... Well, yes, they were burned...But they were also in a terrible plane crash. Perhaps the plane exploded in the middle of the air because some terrorist put a bomb on it...
That is why it was broken in 3 pieces...That is why it was found so far away from the 'original route'. It was hijacked.
Have you ever seen the remains of a plane that exploded in midair? 3 is not the number of pieces you get. To be in three pieces, you need to either make a controlled crash-landing, or have a magic island to pull it into three pieces and lower them to the ground.

The fuselage got washed out be a "freak" tide way back in S1, I think. They supposedly wrote that in because the locals were complaining about the ugly thing mussing up the landscape.

Have you ever seen the remains of a plane that exploded in midair? 3 is not the number of pieces you get. To be in three pieces, you need to either make a controlled crash-landing, or have a magic island to pull it into three pieces and lower them to the ground.

No. I haven't. Thank God. BUt I haven't seen an EMP breaking a plane in 3 pieces either. So I could buy that the plane was rigged with explosives that make it broke apart in 3 individual pieces because of the strategic places they were placed at.
This is a TV show after all.
That's not more far fetched that Ben expecting people to belive that a plane flying over the pacific was found deep down the Indian Ocean.

Two words: Schrodinger's cat.

:dizzy:

wow this is intresting stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

The principle of superposition states that if the world can be in any configuration, any possible arrangement of particles or fields, and if the world could also be in another configuration, then the world can also be in a state which is a mixture of the two, where the amount of each configuration that is in the mixture is specified by a complex number.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQABLRCU_0
Film - TWO of the same thing in the same place at the same time. OK so the Tempest symbol was a WAVE. There's something to this, I think I have a headache.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d9A2oq1N38&feature=related
Two Planes are seen, but it's the same PLANE

Well, alrighty then. I'm not that smart

something that people are forgetting is that the cockpit broke apart and landed inland where the pilot was still alive for a short time, and i presume that the cockpit is still there. The salvage video showed a cockpit with pilot submerged in the trench, definatly would be two seperate cockpits

something that people are forgetting is that the cockpit broke apart and landed inland where the pilot was still alive for a short time, and i presume that the cockpit is still there. The salvage video showed a cockpit with pilot submerged in the trench, definatly would be two seperate cockpits

Check out the scientific stuff in the post above. I guess somehow when I yell at my kids saying "I can't be two places at once" I would be mistaken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuWd_lTUHA&feature=related

also look up Faraday Cage. Maybe the whole Island is a Faraday cage? So the Snow Globe may not be that way off.

Maybe the whole Island is a Faraday cage?

Reference materials said that coaxial cables are effectively a Faraday Cage. So now we know where the Losties are trapped at: back behind Ben's crappy old VCR!!!

- mnw

Reference materials said that coaxial cables are effectively a Faraday Cage. So now we know where the Losties are trapped at: back behind Ben's crappy old VCR!!!

- mnw

Well we know there's cables all over the island. Desmond was right. They're in a bloody snow globe & the other plane is the SAME plane.

It's the whole Tempest, wave, Superposition Principle thing. The nerdy scientists in the youtube video explain it in sort of plain english. Anyway, it's all scientific stuff I really don't understand but it's so interesting.

I'm having a hard time believing some Illuminatti type group or power could produce over three hundred bodies, mostly Caucasian (couldn't just slaughter a third world villiage, well, maybe in parts of Eastern Europe), dress them up like pilots and crew and passengers, close enough to fool anyone who might send a video camera like Jim Cameron. And how did this entity/masonic lodge/alien race dump a plane mocked up just like Oceanic 815. I love this show, have never seen a show so brilliant, romantic and philosophical, but they're gonna have a hard time selling that. I've seen nothing Ben has done that leads me to think he or Jacob could do that, unless Jacob is just God and can blink and make anything happen, which is too Magic. Like God.

But I wait to be proved wrong.

I wrote a response but accidentally clicked on a darned balloon and lost it all.

If I needed 324 dead bodies, and had a shopping list of their physical traits (ethnicities, height, weight, etc) I'd probably start some place that people would not notice a body "disappearing" from... like a crematorium. There have been stories in the news since LOST came on (and before) about crematoriums with nonfunctioning furnaces dumping corpses... it's not beyond comprehension that such a place might willingly provide the corpses to someone promising to discard them, especially if there was something in it for them to sweeten the deal.

If I had names from the manifest and could access passport data, I'd expect to have fairly recent images to work with. Hair can be cut, extended, and/or dyed. Bloating, decomposition, and damage mimicking that of undersea scavengers could help obliterate more obvious differences in appearance. Putting an African American woman similar in build to Rose in Rose's seat, holding the hand of a Caucasian male similar in appearance to Bernard, particularly if you had means to mimic unique pieces of their jewelry (Charlie's DS ring, wedding rings, etc) to create the illusion that the right people had been found.

Coupled with careful camera work (or subsequent editing of the footage) from the robotic cameras to make clear the similarities, while focussing more softly or using shadow to intentionally obscure differences in a way that appeared unintentional, you could probably get next of kin to make identifications.

815 in Sunda Trench broken in 3 pieces just like island's wreck,why?
It wouldn't have to be! 815 in trench off Bali is over 4000 miles from normal course from
Sydney to LA. Pilot said they flew for 6 hours toward LA and turned back toward Fiji
but didn't make it. Why is aircraft in trench 8 flying hours due west of normal course
to LA. 324 bodies are aboard, supposedly true, how do they explain O6? Suppose 815 duplicated by EMP or space/time event, which 815 is real? Are both real? Is there an
alternate timeline? Now I have a headache!!! By the way if 815 was staged,wouldn't it's
position raise a lot of questions with authorities?

324 bodies are aboard, supposedly true, how do they explain O6? By the way if 815 was staged,wouldn't it's position raise a lot of questions with authorities?

As far as your second question above, a lot of people have been asking that.

Back to your first, I think it's because Jack said in court that Kate dragged them to an island. How they got out of the plane before it sank is beyond me, but it's either that or, by the time of talk about the "O-6" the underwater wreck was discovred to not be the real 815.

- mnw

As far as your second question above, a lot of people have been asking that.

Back to your first, I think it's because Jack said in court that Kate dragged them to an island. How they got out of the plane before it sank is beyond me, but it's either that or, by the time of talk about the "O-6" the underwater wreck was discovred to not be the real 815.

- mnw

My interpretation from Jack's words is that the plane 'crash-landed on a deserted island in the South Pacific', but the reason why 8 people survived initially is because they were lucky enough to be thrown out of the plane and land in the water.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I searched it for occurrences of "donor", "donors", "donation", "tissue", and "organ", and found none. I've been saying this for some time, and they gave us a big honkin' clue when Claire, eulogizing one of the supposed victims as they burned the middle section of the fuselage, said he would've been an organ donor. This is also why Scott's body was found to have had every bone broken: he was used for bone tissue.

Robert

i think it's possible an analomy created doppelgangers of the Oceanic people

I'm having a hard time believing some Illuminatti type group or power could produce over three hundred bodies, mostly Caucasian (couldn't just slaughter a third world villiage, well, maybe in parts of Eastern Europe), dress them up like pilots and crew and passengers, close enough to fool anyone who might send a video camera like Jim Cameron. And how did this entity/masonic lodge/alien race dump a plane mocked up just like Oceanic 815. I love this show, have never seen a show so brilliant, romantic and philosophical, but they're gonna have a hard time selling that. I've seen nothing Ben has done that leads me to think he or Jacob could do that, unless Jacob is just God and can blink and make anything happen, which is too Magic. Like God.

But I wait to be proved wrong.

An explanation that explains everything, explains nothing. It's too weak to say Jacob/Ben can do anything. I don't just buy that Evil Big Capitalist White Man is The Debbil Hisseff. I will be so disappointed if that's the direction they're headed. Seems too simple an answer, although I believe they said the explanation would only be partially paranormal (Time Travel/Alternate Reality) and partially mystic. Maybe that's the mystic part.

Okay, I'm diving in a little too deep, but I love that this show sparks such dialogue.


I always assumed the plane crash vics were a split timeline or something equally weird that didn't involve the killing of 324 people, actually. Because it's really hard to hide one body from a victim's family, let alone 324. What did they do, grab 324 homeless guys with no family or friends? People would still notice (especially cops and shelter workers in that area). Unless they were fake bodies? I hate this show. :redface:

Evidently I am in a minority on thinking about this issue, but I will try and explain my idea as clearly as possible. I think arguing over whether Widmore or Ben could stage such a ruse is irrelevant. I believe entire reason the captain went on about "how could Charles Widmore stage such a thing?" was to clue in us, as the audience,
that the found wreckage wasn't staged at all. But that there could be a radically different explanation.

I believe all the bodies were in fact the bodies of the real passengers. Furthermore, in the FF when Sun and Hurley visit Jin's grave, they are visiting an actual grave. Someone is actually buried there! I believe in 2004 the wreckage from the trench was salvaged, the bodies retrieved, identified, and given proper burials to whatever extent possible. You couldn't just get away with staging some replacement dead bodies. The skeletal and DNA evidence would be too much. You saw Sun actually grieving at this gravestone. I don't think this is just some memorial site for her, but actually where Jin is burried.

I believe that when the plane passed through the electromagnetic anomaly it was duplicated, and a second plane appeared far away over the Indian ocean and crashed, killing all on board. The folks on place #1 survived, well, because a lot of miraculous stuff happens on this island.

There is other evidence of things being duplicated and/or appearing elsewhere. Someone mentioned earlier the bunny duplicating in the Orchid. A polar bear appears in the desert. The Black Rock somehow got to the middle of the island.

So the argument, for me, is not who dug up 300-odd bodies, but something much more important to the nature of the island and the show as a whole.

Fair enough. Let's just admit that there have been literally dozens of clues toward how to think about what's going on in this show. From the science fiction books and movies that are referenced, to the names and works of prominent physicists, to the Orchid video. If you don't think there is some time/space manipulation going on you are definitely swimming against the tide.

I'm on the side of the duplicate plane idea -- actually from the beginning, I thought there were two planes, and I pretty much got booed off the island, so to speak.

Anway, it seems much more probable to me that the plane that went into the water is the "real" Flight 815 and our survivors on the island are either from another time line, or exist as a result of a split of some sort that occurred when the plane passed through an anomaly of some kind (sorry, I'm not a scific junkie nor a physicist, so I don't know the right terminology). Given the universe of "Lost" it makes more sense to me than Ben or Widmore planting 324 corpses in a plane to hide the island. If a plane went down in the middle of the ocean, I would assume everyone was dead. Wouldn't you? Why plant a plane that is, for all intents and purposes intact with 324 intact bodies? Wouldn't it be easier and just as effective to plant debris floating in the water?.

The plane in the trench is a duplicate of the real 815. Not a faked flight, but a duplicate created by some space/time rift involving the physics issues the show is exploring. You may dismiss this out of hand if you wish, but as the Magic 8 Ball says "All signs point to 'Yes'".

[quote=CarpeDiem23;1824935]i think it's possible an analomy created doppelgangers of the Oceanic people
Can one of you please post in General Theories? Even if your theory is just a hunch, I'm such the more science oriented types can come on board and fill in some facts.
These are all great thoughts and IMO very in line with the overall theme of time and space.

This is my first post here. I have lurked for a long time, but I just registered recently.

Anyway, I am so curious about this wreckage and how it related to the O6 cover story. First of all, if you are saying someone faked it, why would someone (Widmore/Ben/?) fake this wreckage in this particular way? I mean, it is like they wanted it to be found. But as has been said here already, a crash with the plane and passengers almost entirely in tact would seem more to raise questions than provide answers. Especially being so drastically off course. I mean, talk about conspiracy theories! If one was trying to eliminate interest in the plane, this would seem a bad way to go about it. I mean, wouldn't the previous idea posted here of scattering wreckage in the Pacific ocean be more convincing?

Perhaps it is the real plane in some way. I am still thinking about this idea. But with the emphasis on time travel and the weird properties of the island, I don't think this is out of the question. My question then becomes, again, why is the duplicate plane crashed so far away from the flight path, even accounting for turning around?

What I am really curious to find out this season is how they actually get off the island and what the Oceanic 6 cover story is. For the general public to be buying this story, the whole story of the wreckage in the Sunda Trench would have to be debunked as fraud, right? I mean, the cover story says they crashed in the Pacific, not the Indian ocean, right? So, that entire wreck in the Indian ocean would no longer be considered flight 815 to the general public. So, wouldn't people then be looking for *real* wreckage of flight 815? Wreckage that produced the Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid and Sun that we know? The black boxes of *that* plane? Or even, the island these Oceanic 6 survived on? How do they get rescued without anyone in the real world knowing that the island they were rescued from has dozens of other people living on it? Does someone (Ben?) arrange for them to be "rescued" from some other, actually deserted island? LOL. I have no idea. I am just so curious to know how this Oceanic 6 cover story isn't provoking some very sticky questions about the island.

Easy. India. Skeleton farms in India.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQABLRCU_0
Film - TWO of the same thing in the same place at the same time. OK so the Tempest symbol was a WAVE. There's something to this, I think I have a headache.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d9A2oq1N38&feature=related
Two Planes are seen, but it's the same PLANE
Well, as far as Quantum Superposition goes, the idea is that one thing can be in multiple places at once, but only until it is observed. Once it is observed, it is then and forevermore in only one of the two places. Of course, that's not to say that it's not something along those lines that doesn't directly relate to any actual science... but I think Frank's observation re the ring is to clue us in that it is indeed a fake.

This may seem like a silly question, and maybe I'm not thinking about this the right way, but how do the "Oceanic 6" arrive back in society, with no one questioning their existence, when supposedly (as reported worldwide) ALL of the passengers were found dead???

If all of the passengers are declared dead because each of their actual dead bodies was seen in a trench under the ocean, then how do 6 of those dead bodies arrive back on the mainland alive and well with no questions asked?

:confused:



** Oooops, sorry, this question has been asked before and apparently there is no good answer. :tongue1:

in a morque

remember the old oceanic web site? It looked like 2 planes left Sydney at the same time. If that was true than that would explain the plane and the bodies at the bottom of the ocean. Sadly I don't think that site works anymore. Actually I went there and could get it to work on internet explorer, When you start putting the numbers into the seating chart, the plane changes and says Oceanic 777.
Right, I remember that. It makes perfect sense... all except how you make the entire world forget about Oceanic 777, and all the people on it...:confused:

Done through "the power of the island" I guess.

what does the world believe about 815 now that the O6 have been rescued? it's an interesting question and the answer is probably yet another lie. However, I believe this thread is about theorizing on how it could be possible for someone to stage the 815 wreckage vs. how is it unlikely that's what happened.

What if they're not real bodies, but wax? When you look at the footage of it, they look, well, fake. And they'd look like that even if they were real, so maybe there's no need for real bodies? And if you have a plane, all you need is paint and you've got an Oceanic. The only major problem was the black box, which Widmore OBVIOUSLY didn't have too much of a problem with.

But who staged it? Widmore or Ben? Obviously they're not working together, so I say it's just one or the other.

in a morque

Exactly. We see Jack in a morgue in Sidney. We've seen the keeper of it among the survivors on Lostia in "the Pilot" in S1.(confirmed)

We've seen a lot of the hospital that Jack and his Dad worked at in L.A. Hospitals have morgues.

We've also seen the mental hospital that Hurley likes so much. People that die in mental hospitals are often forgotten about.

We see Sun at a Korean Hospital. A Dr. Paik is called for. Same as her Dad's last name.

4 very possible sources for dead bodies.

The remains of Flight 815 at the ocean floor and all the bodies at the fake crash site were pre-planted. There would not be enough time to find a plane and the necessary passenger count to stage the whole thing once the flight went missing. They set this up in anticipation of the flight going missing to ensure that no one would go looking for Flight 815. It could have been staged months in advance.

The passengers were intended to survive and the plane land intact. Ben had the list in hand before the flight ever took off. They knew who they wanted on the flight. Remember, Claire, Sayid and others were specifcally placed on this flight. And the Others knew who they wanted to take into their midsts. I don't care how resourceful Ben is, it just doesn't make sense that he could obtain a complete passenger list and entire life history of 300 people in a matter of days. The kidnappings started almost immediately which confirms that they knew who would be on the plane and who they were looking for.

Cindy could have been a mole that ensured the flight went off course, Ben has moles everywhere why not on the flight? As evidenced by Lapidus' surprise when he learned of the crash, the pilot was not in on the misdirection and I don't think Oceanic Air was either. Cindy's sudden, non-confrontational, disppearance before the tailies reached the beach confirms she was an Other. So does her comment to Locke that "we've been waiting for you."

When Kelvin left the hatch for the last time, it wasn't to flee the Island but to use the boat to help gather the passengers once the plane crash landed, intact in the water. The timing makes perfect sense. Kelvin was always with the Others which explains why his body did not remain on the rocks and why he has neve been seen again.

The glitch was Des was supposed to push the button. His failure to do so caused the electro-magnetic wave that caused the plane to split. The turbulence was expected as the plane passed through the shield but the wave was not an expected event nor ws the carnage that followed.

My thinking is that at some point Widmore and Ben were originally alligned but something went wrong between them hence the search to retrieve him that came to pass so soon after the crash. Correct me if i am wrong but Ben has seen Des and never seems to be suprised by his presence. He knew he was on the Island and probably knew how he got there.

It is possible that just as Cindy was Ben's mole, Libby was Widmores. Her bumping into Des and "giving" him a boat was just too coincidental. Clearly the boat was rigged to allow Widmore to locate the Island if Des stumbled on it. Around the world races have specifc designated check points. It makes sense that Widmore would have mapped out a course that would have allowed some one to hopefully "stumble" on the Island.

Since we now know that FBs and events in general do not always coincide with what is happening in any given episode isn't it possible that the arctic station was not there for Penny but for Widmore. when Des crossed through the bubble that shielded the Island -- remeber the "storm" that ensued when he did tha, just like the turbulence that hit Flight 815, that triggered the alarm. At the time Penny was not concerned that des was missing and was not looking for him but was just being told he was alright.

Naomi had the Portugese book and spoke Portugese because she was in the station und