Who made the set up?

[Optimus J]

OK, I did found very weird that minutes after the news announced about 815, Tom show Michael all the set up Widmore's people made to fake the crash.
My first thought was "come on, the others did it and made it look like as Widmore's plan". It was too fast for Tom to get those papers and let them prepared for Mike.
So what you people think about all this mess?

[HugeJohnLockeFan]

Ben Linus people

[Walkabout]

My percocets may be to strong but I think it's Widmore. By planting and then finding the plane he assures himself that families aren't seeking answers and more importanlty "James Cameron types" won't go searching for another Titanic. Widmore can look for the Island without concern for treasure hunters and avoid them accidentally running into the island.

[lostfan777]

At first I thought Widmore, but someone pointed out to me (sorry forgot who or where) the mention of the black box.  Forget for a second that this important piece of evidence is carelessly floating around on this junk ship full of nutjubs, the question is why would Widmore want the black box from a fake crash if he was the one who staged it in the first place?  It makes more sense that he wants evidence that it is in fact fake, so I voted that Ben planted the plane!  I'm locking it in!  Final answer!

[Gmonkey]

Widmore, for the simple fact of diverting attention away from the island

[lostfan777]

Widmore, for the simple fact of diverting attention away from the island

As I posted, why would he bother with the black box, it would just prove his cover to be false?  I'm not insisting that I'm right, just looking for clues either way.

[Gmonkey]

Widmore, for the simple fact of diverting attention away from the island

As I posted, why would he bother with the black box, it would just prove his cover to be false?  I'm not insisting that I'm right, just looking for clues either way.

maybe they are still to drop it in the trench?

[lostfan777]

Widmore, for the simple fact of diverting attention away from the island

As I posted, why would he bother with the black box, it would just prove his cover to be false?  I'm not insisting that I'm right, just looking for clues either way.

maybe they are still to drop it in the trench?

Why would they go through the trouble of removing the box from the plane only to replace it again.  They wouldn't need to fake a recording to imitate flight 815, if anyone else was able to retrieve the box, they'd be able to retrieve the bodies also and the cover would be blown.

[Optimus J]

Besides all those bodies must be sort of fresh. I don't see Widmore getting hundreds of bodies to fake a crash, specially because he didn't knew the 815 crashed onto the island. Why make such an operation with the risk of the 815 really have crashed somewhere else and it be found.
BEN on the other hand knew about everything, and he probably have frozen bodies on the research facilities the others seem to have when recruiting Juliet. Even Dharma in its secret works since 1982, but researching deadly vaccines seems more plausible as the bodies origin.

Ben probably see himself as the good guy, because his works are supposedly to solve the Valenzetti equation, for the good of mankind, while Widmore is to have power and profit just for himself. But I believe their methods to reach their objectives talk more than the objectives.

[BobBX542]

I'm saying Widmore just for the fact that Tom seems more believable than the captain of the boat. I'm not throwing the "Don't trust the captain" note in there, because that came from Michael, who got his info from Tom, and that would be biased. I'm just saying that Tom seems more believable. Besides, gay people don't lie. On top of that, it seems reasonable that Tom would have the paper work to prove that Widmore faked it all. It's a little coincidental that he gave Michael the info right after he saw the report on TV, but who's to say that they didn't have that ready just in case Michael needed convincing. That's my view.

[lostfan777]

I don't think either one of them seem believable and Tom could have had the materials made up JUST to convince Michael and they could be faked.  I'm still going with ben, but I see the Widmore camp is catching up, 13-10

[Maxor127]

It can go either way... I'm sure Widmore is capable of it and has motives to do it, but the whole thing Tom said just seemed like the type of lie Ben would said, where he'd say something with a hint of truth but twist it around, like the Henry Gale story.

[Pegasus]

It had to be Ben. The helicopter pilot told Michael that he convinced Widmore that the discovered wreckage was fake.

[LostAndSeek]

Welcome Pegasus!

I think it's Ben too, but about any argument you make could go either way. For example if Widmore's behind the fake, getting a conspiracy theorist like Lapidus away from the press out in the South Pacific on a boat you control is a pretty decent idea.

[fieldy32]

Widmore, for the simple fact of diverting attention away from the island

As I posted, why would he bother with the black box, it would just prove his cover to be false?  I'm not insisting that I'm right, just looking for clues either way.

maybe they are still to drop it in the trench?

Why would they go through the trouble of removing the box from the plane only to replace it again.  They wouldn't need to fake a recording to imitate flight 815, if anyone else was able to retrieve the box, they'd be able to retrieve the bodies also and the cover would be blown.

They have the black box so, just in case, if some dumbass actually decided to go down to the 'Oceanic 815' wreckage to retrieve it, they don't find it.  If someone else found that box, they would then be able to prove it wasn't the real 815, because that black box would reveal it was from a different plane.  I think I'm right about that anyway... I don't have to much experience with black boxes.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.