Transpose the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 to the letters on a phone keypad:

4 8 1 5 1 6 2 3 4 2
GHI TUV JKL MNO ABC DEF GHI ABC

After the last 1 (which has no letters), you get 6=N 2=A 3=D 4=I 2=A. That spells NADIA, people! Don’t you see? It’s so simple.

Locke did say 23

At the beginning of the episode, when Locke meets his father at the bar, he threatens him, saying that if he never sees Locke again after he takes the money, Helen is dead.

Forward to when Locke meets his daddy and gives him the monies, his father starts a light hearted conversation, asking who the girl was at the funeral.

Whats the clue in this enigmatic speech? LOST WRITERS ARE INCONSISTENT LOLZORROFLMAOCOPTER[/quote]

Try watching the episode again and paying closer attention to what Locke’s dad says. He doesn’t say “Helen is dead,” he says “I understand”.
Get your facts straight next time before you make a comment as strong as this.

So the particular people that survive are there as part of the experiment. Can many people from multiple backrounds, cultures and experience come together to triumph over a common enemy? I mean, they don’t talk to each other at all and still know very little about each other after all that time.

Your tie-in to ‘Identity’ may be on to something, though there are a lot of other possible examples with similiar themes. I would like to think that the producers/writers will bring their own twist in, but it is also reasonable to expect that like great artists and musicians, they don’t operate in a vacuum without having influences.

I tend to think of our Losties as “having the power to go home all along,” they just have to figure it out. I am expecting that the idea of the controlled, pre-planned crash will be revealed to them in the closer of this season.

What if every choice we ever make was already made for us? What if there really were no coincidences in life and our destinies were already predetermined?

Ten strangers with secrets are brought together in a savage rainstorm: A limo driver (John Cusack), an ‘80s TV star (Rebecca DeMornay), a cop (Ray Liotta) who is transporting a killer (Jake Busey), a call girl (Amanda Peet), a pair of newlyweds (Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott) and a family in crisis (John C. McGinley, Leila Kenzle, Bret Loehr), all take shelter at a desolate motel run by a nervous night manager (John Hawkes). Relief in finding shelter is quickly replaced with fear as the ten travelers begin to die, one by one. They soon realize that, if they are to survive, they’ll have to uncover the secret that has brought them all together.

If it was not made over a long period of time, then the mapmaker had a second source for the dates. While we’re on that subject, some dates are exact, such as 12.07.81 while some are “suspected”, 10.28.84. Either way, as dates they are EXACT. The suspected shutdown date IS 10.28.84, not 10.84 or sometime in Oct 1984 or fall of 1984. Was the mapmaker in the area on 10.28.84? Were they there a week before while this was active and then there again a week later when it was shutdown, leading to the conclusion of a suspected shutdown date of 10.28.84? Of course we can’t answer these questions but it seems peculiar that the mapmaker would use a specific date, unless they had verified it from another source.

Of course, what if these aren’t dates or some are and some are not? Other possibilites would coordinates, as we see on the map in the form of the x,y,z axis; they could also be time measurements: hr.min.sec. Those are the two that I could come up with but are there more uses for these three number combos?

Speaking of time, where are all the watches? Only Michael’s is mentioned and it is broke. A plane load of people and no watches or wind-up travel clocks? What about in the hatch? If these are dates, how did the mapmaker keep track of dates and time? If the map was made while two people occupied the hatch, one could be off exploring while the other stayed behind to push the button. If it was made by one person, how could they be sure they returned in time? If you were asleep, then the alarm would probably wake you up, but if you were a half mile away above-ground, how would you know it was time to turn back?

Thanks for reading.

On the site http://tviv.org/Lost/Dharma_Initiative there is a screencap of the first frame of the training film found in the hatch. It says “The Dharma Initiative 3 of 6 Orientation” overtop the Swan logo. The map also has the notation “3 of 6″ written near the hatch. Can anyone tell me if the film itself refers to the Swan as a 3rd of 6, indicating it is one of six hatches?

If the film doesn’t mention this, could the 3rd of 6 mean this is the third of six films about the Swan, entitled “Orientation”? Meaning there are five more films out there. An alternative meaning is that the Swan hatch itself is called “Orientation” and the other five have different names?

Just some thoughts.