With Richard Alpert being heavily featured in this past week's episode we have seen a lot of new speculation as to what his origin is. A lot of that speculation centers around two things; the Black Rock (as evidenced by his toying with the ship in the bottle, and the always-present theory of his being an Egyptian god or something.
A theory brought up a lot is that Richard was the captain of the Black Rock, died when it crashed, was resurrected and became ageless. The only problem with this is that plenty of other people have crashed on the island and died (from both 815 and 316) and they weren't resurrected as ageless creatures. The only two resurrections we have seen are Christian Shepard and John Locke, and in both cases they were dead when they came to the island and were then brought back to life. We just haven't seen enough of a time lapse to show that they gained immortality, too.
Here's the fun part:
Richard Alpert is some sort of Egyptain, and he was also on the Black Rock. He was just already dead, and was in a mummy coffin or what have you.
That isn't too farfetched, but I think it is a happy medium between those two Alpert theories.
A theory brought up a lot is that Richard was the captain of the Black Rock, died when it crashed, was resurrected and became ageless. The only problem with this is that plenty of other people have crashed on the island and died (from both 815 and 316) and they weren't resurrected as ageless creatures. The only two resurrections we have seen are Christian Shepard and John Locke, and in both cases they were dead when they came to the island and were then brought back to life. We just haven't seen enough of a time lapse to show that they gained immortality, too.
Here's the fun part:
Richard Alpert is some sort of Egyptain, and he was also on the Black Rock. He was just already dead, and was in a mummy coffin or what have you.
That isn't too farfetched, but I think it is a happy medium between those two Alpert theories.