Did anyone think about the connection between the numbers and the man in the mental hospital with Hurley? In the orientation film the doctor kept saying you and your partner. What happened to Kelvins partner in the hatch? Did he escape the island and make his way back to the states and into a mental institution repeating the numbers he typed into the computer for all those years? Just a theory.

I thought Desmond said that he died.

He said Kelvin died, not that Kelvin's original partner did.

We don't know what happened to Kelvin's partner at this point.

The nut that Hurley learned the numbers heard them because he was stationed along with some other guy in the Pacific and they picked up a radio transmition that kept broadcasting "the numbers".

Lenny was stationed at a listening post in the Pacific with some Australian guy (16 years ago) and they intercepted the numbers. I don't think they were ever on the island.

Kelvin (or Calvin) died. What happened to Kelvin's partner? I thought that maybe the guy who was mumbling the numbers in Hurley's mental institution (Lenny? Larry?) could have been a former hatch resident, but I think Hurley said he was in the Navy and picked up a transmission repeating the numbers and thus began his obsession. Or, maybe Hurley finds this out when he goes to Australia. Might be time to re-watch season 1.

Actually, you make an interesting point. What if Hurley's friend was the survior of experiments done by the Hanso corporation and they've found some power in those numbers?

I wonder if hatch veterans become Others when their shifts are over?? The only other possibility would be that someone comes to pick them up after 540 days. This doesn't seem quite likely given the tough time navigational equipment has with the island...