Monday, May 29, 2006

The Lost Experience - A Fun Diversion


Are you wondering what secrets the mystery island is harboring in the hit television show "Lost?" Me too! Here are a few links to get you started as you piece together the puzzle behind the story in this unique "alternative reality game" (ARG) that is becoming a global phenomenon. It is a multimedia, interactive experience - why not join the fun?

First, read the news release from ABC News which serves as an introduction to the game.

Second, here are a few "in game" web sites that provide some "rabbit holes" for you to follow so you can delve into the Lost Experience via secret messages, hidden clues, interactive telephone numbers, a fictional fictional novel, and more!

1) The Hanso Foundation - Main site where hacker "Persephone" communicates with us and helps us unravel some of the secrets of this organization. This site will likely serve as an ongoing portal for clues throughout the summer.

2) DJ Dan Website - This url can be found in the source code at the Hanso Foundation home page. DJ Dan, a conspiracy hunter, suggests in a podcast that founder Alvar Hanso is in cryogenic storage in AZ. The next podcast is June 1st. Forthcoming links are promised as well.

3) Hanso Foundation Careers - A second site that reveals a code to use back at the main site. There is probably more to this site than the anagram already discovered there.

4) Let Your Compass Guide You - Interesting site that reveals the file folders of various people - including O Welles? - within the Hanso Foundation. You can find some secret documents here that shed light on the connection between Hanso and Jeep (another commercial tie-in).

5) Oceanic Airlines - The fictional airline website tells us about LOST Flight 815 and encourages us to watch Season 2 (September 2005). This site could possibly be part of the 2006 Summer game, but most of the hidden clues have to do with the characters from Season 1. Still, a lot of intriguing snippets that provide a bit of the backstory and mystery behind the show.

6) Bad Twin by Gary Troup - Bad Twin was delivered to Hyperion just days before Troup boarded Oceanic Flight 815, which was lost in flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles in September 2004. He remains missing and is presumed dead. In addition to his many novels of mystery and crime, Gary Troup authored several non-fiction books including The Valenzetti Equation. His disappearance is mourned by all who knew him and enjoyed his work.

Update: 6 of 9 parts to an interview with Gary Troup have been located and collected at YouTube. Also, if you don't want to buy the book at Amazon, a summary of the book can be found in pdf form here.

7) subLYMONal.com - A Sprite commercial tie-in that has some obvious codes to enter at the site which reveals a number of clips and interactive games. A bit annoying with all the images and sounds promoting Sprite's lemon and lime - thus lymon - flavor.

Third, some fan sites to help keep track of all the clues and latest developments...

1) The Lost Experience: The LOST Experience takes LOST fans on an expansive, international easter egg hunt through websites, commercials, emails, phone numbers, and more, in search of pieces to a larger puzzle, a puzzle which, when solved, will enlighten LOST fans to some of the shows deepest mysteries!

2) The Alternative Reality Lost Game: This site will reveal secrets from the LOST Reality Game which began May 3rd, 2006 during the airing of the episode "Two For The Road." This blog lists the clues and solutions found so far as well as all confirmed and suspected "in-game" websites.

3) The Lost Experience Clues: A blog that lists all the clues in order of discovery. I think this site is sponsored by "Stories of the Lost" which discusses the spiritual themes of the hit show - "We would love to interact with you about the most significant things in life: relationships, security, purpose, forgiveness, and hope."

4) Lost Experience Blog: A blog about the "Lost Experience", the world-wide alternate-reality game based on the hit ABC television show "Lost." You'll also want to read about the game so far to catch up on what has already been discovered.

5) UPDATE: Another great blog is Inside the Hatch that covers not only game clues but muses on this past season's episodes, from an English perspective - Come on in, the Hatch awaits. This blog is dedicated to Lost, and in particular Season Two as it airs on Channel 4 in the UK.

Finally, Some Theories and Possible Spoilers...

1) A brother turned me on to Lost late last year and we discussed the usual theories - someone's dream, the survivor's experiences in purgatory (btw, Gary Troup is an anagram of purgatory), and an "Island of Dr. Moreau" experiment. It seems the experiment hypothesis best fits what we've seen so far.

2) How Now BrownPau offers the most likely theory at this point (posited Oct, 2005 - note some scientific initiatives mentioned below are no longer active projects at the Hanso Foundation): "As far as I can tell, it seems the Hanso Foundation's scientific projects mostly account for the weird things that happen on the island: "Electromagnetic Research" experiments are disrupting navigation [thus bringing down Flight 815] . . . "Mathematical Forecasting" is tied into The Numbers and their effect on luck and chance, "Cryogenics Development" kept the polar bears in storage till the plot conveniently called for them, "Juxtapositional Eugenics" gone wrong would have left us with a bunch of Twisted Others, and an "Accelerated Remote Viewing" agent in the environment would cause people to have spontaneous telepathic visions of other people, as well as auditory sensations of people's thoughts as "whispers in the forest."

3) Another source for all things LOST is LostPedia, a wiki dedicated to the Lost phenomenon.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for joining the fun!
lgp

4 comments:

  1. Thanks Al,
    I'm just getting into the game and have totally relied on fan sites along with some snooping around myself. The purgatory idea has been around so I can't take credit. Look forward to finding out more. Stay in touch, lgp

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  2. Season two finale was good - answered a lot of questions that were raised in season one...so in that it was satisfactory. But of course it sets us up for season three! The show is getting a lot more complex even as it develops and answers the initial questions. So keep watching even though you are a few episodes behind in the UK...wild! haha, lgp

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  3. Season 2 finale was good - answered a lot of questions raised in Season 1, but of course set us up for Season 3...too bad you get it so late.

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  4. you know... part of this whole lost thing drives me nuts because it's so deep and there is so much more to watching the show... then part of me just wants to watch the show and not even worry about the other stuff... i love the show and it's so intriguing! i want to know the answers now though... it's like a long novel where i want to read the last chapter now!!!!

    here is a blog i stumbled upon... http://lost-and-gone-forever.blogspot.com//

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Keep it clean and positive. (And sorry about the word verification, but the spmb*ts are out in full force!)