Did I miss something? If I remember correctly Ben takes Sawyer to a ledge so that he can see that his friends are actually on a seperate island, and that there is no way for them to escape. The Lostie's island is clearly visible from this ledge that they're on... are we really supposed to believe that NO ONE has ever seen the seperate "others" island before? They have been on high enough ledges and cliffs several times on the show... and have been there for over 60 days now, not sure of the exact count... have they really never noticed the other island, or am I missing something?

My guess as to why the Lostees have not seen the Other island: The Others with their threats and actions have contained/limited the Lostees to the portion of the large island where the smaller island is hidden from view by the mountains of the large island.

Danielle may or may not have seen the smaller island and if she did she may not have attached any importance to it.

Well, I think we're all hoping this gets explained in the coming season.

I don't take it for granted that no one has ever seen the small Hydra island. I do think it could either be hidden from them becaue it's opposite of where they crashed and the island blocks them from seeing it, or that the electromagnetic forces that the swan previously controlled hid it from view, and it is only visible now, after the swam implosion.

There are definately some other island on Danielle's map, but they are much smaller than the main land mass.

That might be why Miss Klugh told Hurley to tell the other Losties that they can never come to the Pala Ferry side of the island...because that's the only part of the island where you can view Hydra Island from.

And it might also tie in to Zeke's "line-in-the-ground" from THP.

Both "Hydra Island" and "Lost Island" seem big to Sawyer even though Hydra is much smaller than Lost. But if you look at Hydra Island from a mountain on Lost Island, maybe Hydra Island just looks really small. Danielle may have mapped it but it didn't seem significant.

But the best explanation is definitely Tom's "line-in-the-ground". If they aren't even on that island what else would they have to protect by drawing the line? Either they really wanted them to stay on their side of the island or maybe they have a way to view that location so they just set that up as a logical meeting place for the Losties to go to.

Danielle may or may not have seen the smaller island and if she did she may not have attached any importance to it.Or Sayyid may have seen it and may not have attached any importance to it. Why would he give a detailed report on the geography of the coastline when he found things of much more potential interest?

On the other hand (no, wait, on the third hand) the largest of the small off-shore islets is just about the right size (between a half a mile and a mile long), is near the place where some people speculate that the cable was which ran into the sea, and is blocked from view, in that location, by a spit of land. Sayyid would have had to cut inland across the promontory to miss the islet, but that could have been necessary if the coastline was impassible there.