Oceanic Airlines was owned by the Hanso Foundation. The Hanso Foundation’s main goal was to save humanity, to rid the world of some of its incurable diseases. The Hanso Foundation even tried to break the Valenzetti Equation “4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42,” an equation that when worked out correctly, supposedly predicted when the end of the world would occur. This is why there are so many references to the numbers on the island. Alvar Hanso was a great man; however, he wasn’t the best at surrounding himself with reliable people. The Hanso Foundation’s second in command, Thomas Mittlewerk became obsessed with the power he held. He went behind Alvar Hanso’s back and did some very nasty things. Instead of simply trying to find cures or vaccines for diseases, he began testing them on human subjects. This is why parts of the island were “Quarantined” and why there are so many references to “The Sickness.” This led to two factions of the Dharma Initiative: Those who chose to follow Hanso, The Dharma Scientist, and those who chose to follow Mittlewerk, the Others.
Since Mittlewerk had/has access to Oceanic Airlines, he realized he needed to populate the island with more inhabitants, or at the very least, guinea pigs. Mittlewerk intentionally had the pilots fly the plane to the island, where a landing strip was already in place. The plane however, never landed because of the magnetic anomaly and broke apart in mid-air. Benjamin Linus, the man who appears to be second in command only to Mittlewerk knew the plane would be landing on the island that day. However, he didn’t expect the plane to break apart in mid-air and come crashing down on the island, this is why he directed Ethan and Goodwin so quickly to their missions, he had already anticipated the plane coming to the island this day. Remember his snide remark to Juliet just after he sent Ethan and Goodwin away? “Guess I’m not in the book club anymore.” After watching a Jumbo Jet crash only miles away from a secret research facility, you don’t casually start talking about books again unless you already anticipated the plane arriving at the island that day.
Since Ben knew the plane would be landing that day, someone above him, probably Mittlewerk since he had access to Oceanic Airlines, arranged for a duplicate planes wreckage to be found. This would lead the outside world to believe that there were no survivors, either because they couldn’t find any bodies, or because Mittlewerk himself oversaw the “crash site.” As soon as the outside world “knew” the wreckage had been found, any outside search and rescue parties would cease and desist from their attempts at finding 815’s wreckage.
So no, there is no alternate universe, there is no purgatory. There is simply some brilliant, but evil minds at work somewhere in the chain of command that was the Hanso Foundation. Just go to the Hanso Foundation’s old website and read the open letter to the public that Alvar Hanso wrote. “The path to secrecy is a slippery slope.” We no longer know what the Hanso Foundation is up to, they may have completely lost hope of the island and left it to those who followed Mittlewerk after “The Purge.” But from all of the information the show has provided, as well as information the show’s producers have provided, this is the only logical conclusion we can come to.
Theory by beau_coop
Since Mittlewerk had/has access to Oceanic Airlines, he realized he needed to populate the island with more inhabitants, or at the very least, guinea pigs. Mittlewerk intentionally had the pilots fly the plane to the island, where a landing strip was already in place. The plane however, never landed because of the magnetic anomaly and broke apart in mid-air. Benjamin Linus, the man who appears to be second in command only to Mittlewerk knew the plane would be landing on the island that day. However, he didn’t expect the plane to break apart in mid-air and come crashing down on the island, this is why he directed Ethan and Goodwin so quickly to their missions, he had already anticipated the plane coming to the island this day. Remember his snide remark to Juliet just after he sent Ethan and Goodwin away? “Guess I’m not in the book club anymore.” After watching a Jumbo Jet crash only miles away from a secret research facility, you don’t casually start talking about books again unless you already anticipated the plane arriving at the island that day.
Since Ben knew the plane would be landing that day, someone above him, probably Mittlewerk since he had access to Oceanic Airlines, arranged for a duplicate planes wreckage to be found. This would lead the outside world to believe that there were no survivors, either because they couldn’t find any bodies, or because Mittlewerk himself oversaw the “crash site.” As soon as the outside world “knew” the wreckage had been found, any outside search and rescue parties would cease and desist from their attempts at finding 815’s wreckage.
So no, there is no alternate universe, there is no purgatory. There is simply some brilliant, but evil minds at work somewhere in the chain of command that was the Hanso Foundation. Just go to the Hanso Foundation’s old website and read the open letter to the public that Alvar Hanso wrote. “The path to secrecy is a slippery slope.” We no longer know what the Hanso Foundation is up to, they may have completely lost hope of the island and left it to those who followed Mittlewerk after “The Purge.” But from all of the information the show has provided, as well as information the show’s producers have provided, this is the only logical conclusion we can come to.
Theory by beau_coop
