Chott El Jerid: Reaction to "What if the Island is not an Island (by IanG)" by Cos

I saw this posted somewhere a few years ago and it has always stuck in my mind. Reading IanG's "What if the Island isn't an Island" made me think of it again.

At the bottom of this entry, I'm going to include a link to a map of Tunisia. In the country of Tunisia there is a giant depression called Chott El Jerid.

For those not familiar with a Chott, here's the definition:

Chott - a dry (salt) lake in the Saharan area of Africa that stays dry in the summer, but receive some water in the winter. This water may come as a groundwater discharge

Imagine this area as the original position of the island, firmly entrenched in the country of Tunisia.

This is where the (now) ruins were originally built. This is where the statue was built. This is where the tunnels were built, and the hieroglyphics were etched. This is the origin of the Jacob/MIB battle.

Tunisians check it out. They see that it is special. They build some stuff. Write some stuff. Build a wheel that connects to the energy. Someone spins the wheel, and the island, rips from the ground, moves to another position in the world, and leaves a massive depression in the ground. Chott El Jerid.

Whoever was standing within the radius moved with the island, and would become the Island's original inhabitants, the beginning of the Others.

Whenever someone spins the wheel now, they travel through a wormhole that spits them out in this location at some random point in time.

A few interesting points about Chott El Jerid:

- They shot Tatooine scenes (Lars Homestead) there in the original Star Wars, and a few other scenes in some other Star Wars movies that will go unmentioned

- The city of Tozeur, where Ben checked into his hotel, is just a touch to the Northwest (between Chott El Jerrid and Chott el Gharsa (aka Hydra Island))

Check out the link to the map below... (sorry for the length of the link)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Chott+el+Jerid,+Tozeur,+Tunisia&sll=42.717497,5.261406&sspn=28.911249,55.810547&ie=UTF8&cd=3&geocode=FZMmAgIdbMh-AA&split=0&hq=&hnear=Chott+el+Jerid,+Tozeur,+Tunisia&ll=33.749464,8.432007&spn=1.025366,1.74408&z=9

(My apologies to the original author of this theory. I searched high and low for it, but was unable to find it. The search goes on.)