Conspiracy Theory

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HUMANITY IS ALMOST EXTINCT

SYNOPSIS A worldwide calamity (pandemic? nuclear war? meteor?) has wiped out the rest of humanity. By either happenstance or design, the Oceanic castaways survived the apocalypse.
EVIDENCE FOR Various pieces of Lost arcana could be interpreted as clues planted by the producers. In science, the catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs is called the ''K-T event.'' Does ''K-T'' = Kate? One K-T scenario posits that a star dubbed ''Nemesis,'' which orbits our sun, created some celestial bad weather that ultimately caused the death of T. rex and friends. In ''The Long Con,'' the words nemesis and sun are linked in dialogue between Sawyer and Charlie.
EVIDENCE AGAINST Those ''clues''? Crazy talk.
WHAT THEY SAY Even Sawyer has doubts. ''If the rest of the world is extinct,'' says Josh Holloway, ''then where did those Dharma supplies that dropped from the sky come from? Then again, this could be a big government experiment, and you know as well as I do [that] if we blow this world up, they're going to be in their little bunkers down there sipping cocktails. So maybe Dharma is part of that, and they're using the island to rebuild society — but better.''

MAD SCIENTISTS ARE TO BLAME

SYNOPSIS Passengers were brought to the island as guinea pigs in a wide range of experiments, like studying the effects of electromagnetic energy on humans. The monster (a.k.a. ''Cerberus'') is a watchdog whose primary job is to keep test subjects from straying outside the EM section of the island. The Others could also be test subjects...the scientists themselves...or a faction of ex-scientists who now oppose the experiments.
EVIDENCE FOR Electromagnetic energy may have healed Locke's legs, Rose's cancer, and Jin's infertility. The map in the hatch suggests a Dharma-explains-everything solution (that's where we got the Cerberus thing). And even if the map is bogus, the hatches and the Dharma supply drop suggest that an ''initiative'' is (or was) at work on the island.
EVIDENCE AGAINST ''The Other 48 Days'' episode clearly showed the plane crashing. Doesn't that seem like a really risky way to recruit lab rats?
WHAT THEY SAY This is the view most commonly held by the actors. Daniel Dae Kim thinks the castaways are part of ''a human ant farm'' run by the Dharma Initiative. Harold Perrineau's take is more ironic: He thinks scientists are using the island to test a new one-world religion. And Holloway has a darker view. ''The island is like a working machine. It's mobile, like the Death Star. That one thing — the button — keeps it from becoming the ultimate weapon.'' Then, flashing that dimpled Sawyer grin, he adds: ''Or whatever.''