Essentials
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The Hanso Foundation and Thomas Werner Mittelwerk
The Lost Experience began with The Hanso Foundation's website, at http://www.thehansofoundation.org (it is now 'down', but an archive of old screencaptures and detailed info are found in the Walkthrough thread).
The story that we know from Lost (TV only) is just that The Hanso Foundation funded the DHARMA Initiative's projects on the Island, and that the founder is Alvar Hanso. Through the website, we learned more details about the foundation.
The Hanso Foundation has 6 active public projects, according to this site:
- Mathematical Forecasting Initiative (MFI)
- Worldwide Wellness and Prevention Development Program (WWP DP)
- Mental Health Appeal (MHA)
- Electromagnetic Reseach Initiative (ERI)
- Institute for Genomic Advancement (IGA)
- Life Extention Project (LEP) (Joop, a 105 year old orangutang that has supposedly undergone life extension treatments, is their mascot)
According to their Executive Bios, the individuals in power include:
- Alvar Hanso (CEO & Founder)
- Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk (President & Chief Technologist)
- Hugh McIntyre (Communication Director)
- Peter Thompson (Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary)
- Board of Directors: Jacob Vanderfield, Liddy Wales, Lawrence Peck, Dick Cheever
This foundation claims to be an international organization which helps with philanthropic projects to benefit humanity around the world. Their mission statement is as follows:
Quote
The Hanso Foundation stands at the vanguard of social and scientific research for the advancement of the human race.
For forty years, The Foundation has offered grants to worthy experiments seeking to promote world peace through improved health, prevention, vitality and longevity. The Hanso Foundation. Reaching out to a better tomorrow.
For forty years, The Foundation has offered grants to worthy experiments seeking to promote world peace through improved health, prevention, vitality and longevity. The Hanso Foundation. Reaching out to a better tomorrow.
However, there appears to be a dark, hidden agenda to the Foundation. The website was slowly hacked by an anonymous individual who went by the name "Persephone", and later revealed to be Rachel Blake, ironically Alvar Hanso's daughter. Secrets are revealed, which include:
- Alvar Hanso has been missing for the past few years
- All the company executives have been up to no good, and have a history of involvement with illegal or immoral projects
- All the current projects are a front for unethical activities, including illegal organ harvesting, use of mathematical forecasting to start wars, questionable experiments with genetic engineering and life extension, and the intentional spread of viruses to limit population growth
- The Hanso Foundation also has associations with Widmore Corporation (in England) and Paik Heavy Industries (in Korea). They contracted the latter in order to build a large hospital ship called the Helgus Antonius, on board which all levels were labeled 'QUARANTINE'.
As the story unfolds and Rachel Blake reveals her true identity as the hacker of The Hanso Foundation's site, Thomas Werner Mittelwerk emerges as the true 'bad guy' behind all of the evil deeds of the organization. We learn that he has been keeping Alvar Hanso a near-prisoner in his home due to experimental life extension treatments he himself has been given, and running the show since. He is pursued by Rachel across many different countries.
In the Sri Lanka video, details of how The Hanso Foundation is tied in to DHARMA, The Numbers, the Valenzetti Equation, and possibly The Sickness and The Island seen on Lost are given.
After the details of these secrets and evil deeds are leaked to the authorities by Rachel and the friends that help her out, law enforcement raid The Hanso Foundation's headquarters. However, Mittelwerk had set a trap, and blew up the building, destroying all the evidence. He escaped and his current whereabouts are unknown.
After Rachel found Alvar Hanso in Norway, he decided he wanted to get the word out about the wrongdoings of The Hanso Foundation in the past, and owned up to his own responsibility of neglecting to stop it. The site then displayed his letter of apology. Hanso said that due to habitual secrecy, his trust in colleague Thomas Mittelwerk was misplaced at the cost of peoples' lives, for which Hanso's "regret... is endless."
However, it appears that Mittelwerk still managed to get the final word, and there is a hacked secret message that is encoded into it when the word "humanity" is clicked. It has Mittelwerk vowing that we have not heard the last from him yet:
Quote
You've taken a battle, but that's all it was, a battle. Humanity needs me, now more than ever. I have the virus, I have the will, and I will not fail.
Item Last Updated: September 26, 2006, 01:10:37 PM by Pandora
