I always get excited when crafts get a spotlight…

Picture via ACB.com

Here’s a pretty cool theory about the random whispers the characters keep hearing on the TV series LOST, originally posted on Buddy TV, but found via Wonderday.

Last week’s episode did a lot to open our eyes. Now that we know about time travel and the perception of time on the island being different than actual time off the island, some things are beginning to make sense, most notably, the whispers in the jungle and the appearance of people from out of nowhere.

I was reminded of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the Enterprise gets stuck in a time loop, and at night, Beverly Crusher hears a series of whispers, which they discover are remnants of the previous time loops, echoes from the same time. Tonight, when Juliet heard the whispers, that all clicked for me, and I realized that the sound of whispers is actually the time outside the island catching up to the perceived time on the island.

What’s more, how do these people keep showing up in the middle of the jungle and vanish just as quickly. At first I was certain Harper was a ghost, then Jack saw her. No, there are no ghosts on this island, just people temporarily unstuck in time. The Others are probably using the research from the Orchid about shifting to transport people in space and time. The problem is that this requires them to apply real time to the island time, so the whispers are the residue of the shift.

It all makes perfect sense. How didn’t we see this all before? Perhaps the leap in logic to time travel was something we largely refused to accept as fact before it was shown to us last week. But just like that, the mystery of the whispers and the appearance of figures in the middle of the jungle is answered, if only you’ll put all the pieces together.

In the comments, one of the posters puts forth the theory that Jacob is the “Smokie” smoke monster who can take the form of people from a character’s past (Jack’s Dad, Kate’s Horse, Locke’s Dad, Eko’s brother, Juliet’s Therapist) that it learns about by scanning a character’s memories when it does that clicky thing. Makes sense - every time someone had a weird encounter with a person from their past that couldn’t possibly be there, it was shortly after they had an encounter with that funky smoke.

ABC.com has also set up a rumour pit where fans can upload videos of their own theories. You can check it out here.