"the others" are human guinea pigs being used as a control group to test the effects of the plague that DHARMA group has unleashed.

they were brought to the island by DHARMA. they are all infected and were the ones who spread the disease to Danielle's crew when they landed on the island.

One question that has to be answered is are all the crashes and shipwrecks on the Island accidents? Or deliberately caused? And if deliberate, is it ALL of the crashes? Or just some of them? And this goes all the way back to the Black Rock... is the Black Rock part of what's going on in the hatchelor pad, or is it a completely separate mystery?

hatchelor pad
Very clever!

great point- Black Rock is meant to show this has been going on a long time.


perhaps DHARMA group chose this island for precisely whatever it is that causes these accidents.

(magnets, weather phenom, etc)

I wish I could claim "Hatchelor Pad", but it's not mine... alas.. I don't know who orignated it.

Not bad.

This is the way I think... ;)

One question that has to be answered is are all the crashes and shipwrecks on the Island accidents? Or deliberately caused? And if deliberate, is it ALL of the crashes? Or just some of them? And this goes all the way back to the Black Rock... is the Black Rock part of what's going on in the hatchelor pad, or is it a completely separate mystery?

The plane crash has to be the result of human intervention. No one could survive the descent from a jetliner that broke apart at its cruising altitude. Something had to ease the fuselage's midsection, the cockpit, and (presumably) the tail section to earth in a way that was gentle enough to permit human survival.

didn't Sayid say that it would have "taken a miracle" for them to survive a crash like that?

perhaps it's the same type of "miracle" that happened after Desmond spoke to Jack at the stadium and the woman regained feeling in her legs.

One question that has to be answered is are all the crashes and shipwrecks on the Island accidents? Or deliberately caused? And if deliberate, is it ALL of the crashes? Or just some of them? And this goes all the way back to the Black Rock... is the Black Rock part of what's going on in the hatchelor pad, or is it a completely separate mystery?

This makes me think of something like the Bermuda Triangle. A specific area which aparently causes strange things to happen to ships and aircraft, causing them to sink, crash, disappear...for what ever reason unknown. I don't think this is "the" Bermuda Triangle, but there are other so-called triangles in the world with similar experienced phenomenon.