Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind.

How could you keep an island hidden?

I've been pondering this thought for some time. Even back in the days of Sail, there would be some intrepid British or Spanish captain who would have stumbled on the island. Besides the Black Rock, there would have to have been other shipwrecks here. The Samoans or Fijians were pretty adept sailors themselves, having found every other little rock sticking up out of the water in such a large ocean ( Easter Island? 1600 miles from anywhere), how could they miss an island that is 8 or more miles long?

Not to mention in today's world, where every square inch of the globe has been flown over, photographed, surveyed and charted to an astonishing degree. Kind of hard to hide an island from a satellite taking thermal or infrared temp photos of the ocean. The island would jump out from the surrounding colder water.

I really puzzled about this when Desmond took the 'Elizabeth' out after he (killed) or knocked out Kelvin (no body) and sailed off from the island on a heading of due west. Now even taking into account the magnetic properties of the island, it is still possible to sail a boat without a compass, especially at night. Sailors have followed the stars for thousands of years and used sextants to plot a course during the day. Desmond was an experienced sailor (why else attempt to sail around the world?) and would be pretty capable of maintaining a due west heading.

So when he wound up back on the island after two and a half weeks, well, let's just say that doesn't make much sense. Desmond said "We're in a bloody snow globe, brutha" was a pretty good line, but not an explanation. Also, what ever happened to that sailboat anyway?

The other thing bothering me is the supply drops. Supposedly they had to be intitiated from the flame as per the "Supply Drop Protocol" as seen on the screen where Locke was sniffing around Mikhael's computer in the Flame.
Is there more than one area where supplies are dropped? Why make the people living in the barracks go all the way to the Swan station drop? I guess the guys in the Swan station would have to make quite a few trips to haul their supplies back to the hatch. And why are they getting supplies in this manner anyway? Is this something that started after the incident? Wasn't there a road that went to the Swan? I think one showed up on Roger Workman's map.

If Dharma were still operational, Why not just drive the supplies out to the Station? The Virus or Sickness you say? well, how about hauling an entire pallet of supplies back to your hatch while wearing a Hazmat suit in a tropical jungle? Sound like fun? you bet. This just doesn't make sense to me either.

There had to be another way to get stuff to the island. Nobody brought VW vans in on a submarine. All the building materials, large appliances and mainframe computers would have had to be brought in by ship. They would have needed Caterpillars to build bunkers and cement trucks to build at least the Swan and the Pearl. You remember that concrete that John Locke said must be 6 feet thick around the magnetic core of the Swan? Well it ain't made out of Quickrete, I can tell you that. There are obvious tunnels running around the island (remember Razzle Dazzle (Expose´), when Paco was stashing his goodies in the crapper?, Ben and Juliette came out of a tunnel and looked up to see the Pearl hatch open).

I liked the way they handled the hidden island thing in King Kong, Shrouded in mist that never changes, shielded from view. But this island has some spectacularly sunny days with unlimited visibility, including stars at night. How exactly could the Looking Glass block a GPS signal to Naomi's SAT phone anyway?

In TTLG when Jack is sitting in his apartment looking all forlorn, surrounded by maps all over the floor, I thought it seemed a little strange that he couldn't figure out where the island is. Come on, as soon as I heard that the numbers were being broadcast from Hurley's friend in the loony bin, I right away thought they were coordinates. No, I'm not some math or numbers geek, it just sounded like Hurley said the numbers were repeating over and over. Why else broadcast a repetitive series of numbers? It sounded like a distress call and what else would you give but your coordinates so you could be rescued? Type these into Google maps and you find a piece of ocean in the South Pacific in a tropical climate that would be perfect place to park an island. 4º 8' 15" / 162º 3' 42"



Speaking of Jack, in his Flash forward he is taking flights over the Pacific every weekend with his 'Golden Pass'. Since the implosion of the Swan station, how exactly does he think an airliner is gonna get sucked down to the island? If it happened at all, wouldn't the place be littered with airliners right now?

Since I'm on a little reality check here...

How could a freighter be only 160 kilometers off shore and the island not show up on radar? I was in the U.S. NAVY and believe me, we could see a one hundred and sixty kilometers away from our ship with on board radar. Especially when you consider Naomi was aboard a helicopter and she said she thought she was over open water ( lets not delve into the absurdity of flying a helicopter at night over open ocean looking for someone).

This is one of the core mysteries of this show. How is the island hidden from view? Here's hoping TPTB have a good explanation and that they give it to us somewhere in the next 48 installments of this incredible show.

Namaste
hatchling23