you could easily have a pallet hooked to the bottom of a balloon basket.

again, just speculation.

Yes, but it would have to be a BIG BALLOON. Look how big a balloon has to be to carry a basket and 3-4 people.

Does anyone think that as the show progresses, they'll spread out to different 'hatches' and inhabit them instead of the beach?

I'm thinking in 3 or 4 years this show will turn out to be completely different than what we're used to now...

~Jason

(maybe this post should go in the General Lost thread?)

Has anyone noticed the difference in the storm in the past two episodes? There has been thunder and lighting, which to the best of my recollection, would be the first time. Every other time it rains, it just starts pouring.

Just back from lunch, the issue is already on newstands.

Maybe food pallets have to be dropped off by a balloon because the island's electromagnetism would mess up anything metal -- say, for instance, a plane.

also wanted to comment on how fast fake henry rattled off the numbers after Locke only told him once. Pretty interesting.

I noticed on my DVR that the blurb for next week's episode has a bit of a spoiler in it.


So speculating based on this blurb...

Why does Dharma make their own printed cereal boxes? It's not like they are going to market them to the public or anything.

'Henry Gale' is not an Other.

maybe they're in a big dome like in "The Truman Show", and the parachute just dropped from the ceiling?

the fatalities are people it landed on?

Also the fact that he didn't ask for them again after he knocked himself out trying to get to the vent. "How long was I out?"... he wouldn't have remembered the numbers. Somethings up.

When you go on one of those hot air balloon tours - they get like 8-10 people into one of those baskets. (10 people @ 150lbs = 1,500lbs)

That's a good amount of Dharma Cereal


balloons used by large commercial sightseeing operations that carry well over two dozen people and have envelope volumes of up to 15,000 cubic meters (600,000 ft³). For typical atmospheric conditions, a hot air balloon requires about 3 cubic meters of envelope volume in order to lift 1 kilogram (50 ft³/lb).

Lift is 50ft per lb = 12,000 lbs on one of these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_air_balloon

For my deposit box, you have to confirm your signature before they can get the box for you.

Maybe the Dharma Initiative is really just a plan to test market a new brand of cereal in a controlled environment (the island) before launching wide with the new product.

(Hey, it may be out there, but it's not the craziest theory yet I've seen made about the show!)

So ABC doesn't have to pay General Mills for using their products? Plus it looks cooler. They wouldn't seem half as mysterious if they were eating Lucky Charms.

Ha, good question...maybe they just don't want any reminders of the outside world?

But if that was true, they wouldn't allow the Mama Cass and Geronimo Jackson albums either.

Instead, maybe it's their own brand because there's something in the cereal, such as drugs for the experiment.

So do the others have regular communication with the outside world?

I only ask as to me the simple way of finding out if they have been on the island for so long is questions about current events, like the pope's death etc etc.

Why would The Others give Henry Gale a "proper burial" with a cross at the crash site...?

Oh, that one's easy. So they could easily infiltrate the plane crash survivors with a story of a crashed balloon and a dead wife. The others didn't expect them to dig up a grave when the rest of the story checked out.

Part of the cover story when trying to escape the Losties. Henry Gale's wife is suppoed to be down there. But Sayid exposed that as a LIE!!

Not that I really miss him all that much, but shouldn't there be some follow-up on Michael? Is the actor off doing a movie or something?

He clearly isn't trying to escape. He could have easily left Locke after he entered the code.

They went years not falling for Rousseau's traps, so this was likely done to infiltrate the Oceanic-815 camp. Get yourself captured and try to convince them you are a fellow "shipwreck".

The purpose of infiltrating is unknown. Perhaps just to have an inside man in the experiment (I'm assuming the Losties are current the experiment, since the Dharma initiative is clearly still ongoing -- and they have to be studying something, right?). Perhaps this is a behaviorial study of some sort and "Henry Gale" was going to get some first-hand evidence.