The Lost Experience Storyline Only (For NonPlayers): An Illustrated Guide

[Pandora]

Got a few requests for this, so I thought it might help people catch up to the story, for those who don't have the time to play, or have no interest in playing the summer's alternate reality game (abbreviated ARG).  It's become apparent that there will be some S3 spoilers given within the game, but I don't see any reason why people should feel forced to play just to get them, so this is a good summary up to this point.

We are being told that The Lost Experience (TLE) at this point will span 5 Acts.  Basically, we've been finding clues to unlock an online story of mystery and intrigue which gives background to The Hanso Foundation. 

Scroll to the end of these posts if you don't want to read the whole story, and just want to read a quick summary of connections to LOST and potential spoilers.


ACT I:

Meet The Hanso Foundation (THF).  They have a very clean-cut, professional looking website (currently down and no longer looking like this):



This is how we were introduced to this corporation.  As you recall, from the LOST orientation films, Alvar Hanso was the "Danish industrialist and munitions magnate Alvar Hanso whose financial backing made [The DHARMA Initiative] dream of a multi-purpose social science research facility a reality."  This website gives a little more background for the foundation that made this possible (note their mission statement): 


Homepage

• Video Ad
• News

Mission Statement

• 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.

Executive Bios

• Alvar Hanso (CEO & Founder)
• Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk (President & Chief Technologist)
• Hugh McIntyre (Communication Director)
• Peter Thompson (Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary)
• Board of Directors (pw-locked):  Jacob Vanderfield, Liddy Wales (no pic), Lawrence Peck, Dick Cleaver

Active Projects

• 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 - see also Joop, below)

Joop's Corner
Newsletter (Sign up)
Television Ad


Meet Joop:



He's a supposedly 105 year old orangutan, originally brought over by British explorers.  He is so old because he is the crowning achievement in THF's Life Extension Project (LEP), and they bill him as sort of a mascot.  He had a section with a webcam, but when we tried to view him, he seemed to nuts.  Instead of seeing the legitimate website, a hacker persona who called herself Persephone started typing messages to us.  She doesn't reveal her identity at this point, but wants to tell us some dark secrets about The Hanso Foundation.

She shows us some letters addressed to THF, from an organization called the Global Welfare Consortium (GWC).  The letters appear concerned about the spread of a strain of meningococcal disease (infection of brain membranes) in Africa.  It appears from the first letter that the GWC originally suspected primate research THF had been doing within their Zanzibar facility was responsible for the spread of this disease, and had compromised public health safety in that area.  Also revealed in the set of letters is that there is something of a conflict of interest within the GWC itself, as their Director General appears to have been replaced by Peter Thompson, who is Vice President of THF, too.  If the GWC is a watchdog organization for public health, how could they fairly regulate a research facility like THF, if one person sits at the head of both organizations?

Back to Alvar Hanso, the head of THF; here's the only known picture of him (the same one as in the orientation films):



Little more is known about his personal life through the website; he is said to be "highly private".  Supposedly, according to the site, he first "...made his mark during the Second World War, providing munitions to various resistance movements around Europe. After the War, Hanso became the leading purveyor of high-technology armaments to NATO."  We also know that Hanso addressed the U.N. in 1967.  He founded THF sometime after that, supposedly as a philanthropic organization that uses science to help mankind.

One quote by him, "Since the dawn of time, Man has been curious, imagining all that is possible.", was at one point roughly quoted by Tom, the bearded Other, on LOST. 

Persephone, through her next hack, reveals that he traveled to many countries in Europe in recent years... and that since 2002, has not been seen in public; so that is part of the mystery.  Where has Alvar Hanso been since then, and who is running this company if no one has seen him?

Persephone's following target is the bio of this man:



This is Thomas Werner Mittelwerk, and he is the President and Chief Technologist of THF.  Her hack hints that he is the "heir apparent" to THF.  He claims to be a doctor studying genetics, but Persephone claims she can find no alumni record of him at Caltech. 

It appears that Gary Troup (fictional author & supposed victim of Flight 815) may have been dropping hints about him also, by making him a disreputable character in his novel, Bad Twin (this was the manuscript Hurley & Sawyer were reading on the show).  In his novel, Mittelwerk is on the board of trustees at Widmore Corporation, where he was described by one character as "sneaky... got ideas and ambition... everything but morals and conscience."  As a reminder, references to Widmore popped up on the LOST island on Sun's pregnancy test package and on the side of the hot air balloon basket.

Gary Troup also tells us in interviews for a book show that he wrote another book called The Valenzetti Equation, about an Italian mathematician who could predict the apocalypse through one of his equations (recall that Valenzetti is mentioned on the blast door map in LOST).  However, it appears that Hanso and THF were so interested in it that they bought up all the copies, and no one can get a hold of it anymore.  More on Valenzetti later...

Incidentally, Gary Troup is also connected to LOST because he and Cindy Chandler (the flight attendant who ended up with the tail section on the show) were in love and both riding on 815 before it crashed.  He is presumed dead.

Now, meet DJ Dan and his sidekick, Tonya:



DJ Dan comes into our story by looking at the source code of THF's site (another hack, apparently), which led us to his website.  He looks a LOT like Javier Grillo-Marxuach, former writer of LOST, doesn't he? 

DJ Dan is a conspiracy theorist, something of a nut.  He runs his own podcasts, where he talks to callers (not real world) who believe in seeing conspiracies everywhere--from Area 51 to electromagnetism-blocking toasters.  He has a LOT of references to LOST on his website and in his podcasts, but it is difficult to know where the truth and real clues lie, and where they are just being cute with Easter Eggs from the TV show.  Among other things, his early podcasts have hinted various ideas (few of which are confirmed as of this date, and should be taken with a grain of salt):

• Alvar Hanso is cryogenically frozen
• Widmore Corporation was involved in the building of a weapon that uses electromagnetic pulses to knock large objects down from the sky
• Genetic engineering is evil, and THF may be involved in projects that involve tattooing sharks with DHARMA symbols (one picture seen below)

At some point, he gets threatened by an anonymous caller, so he may be on to something... we'll return to him...

Back to The Hanso Foundation, we learn more dark secrets of the top executives there through Persphone hacks. 



Above is Peter Thompson, Vice President of THF.  He is also a lawyer who appears to have represented clients like nuclear waste dumpers, Big Tobacco, and other criminals (ensuring that ordinary citizens got a raw deal), before being diagnosed with cancer himself.  According to Persephone, THF treatments saved him and then he started working for the corporation.  All the other guys on the Board of Directors appear to be corrupt and have served time in prison for a variety of white collar crimes in the past.  Hugh McIntyre (shown below on TV), the Public Relations and Ad guy for THF, is apparently not the family man he claims to be, and having an affair with a mysterious woman.

Meanwhile, THF is waging their own public image war back through newspaper ads and TV commercials, saying that Gary Troup and the hacker are just promoting lies.  Hugh McIntyre even makes a 'live' appearance on a late-night TV show to denounce the attacks, and during this opportunity says that LOST is just a TV show, and shouldn't be taken seriously.  He claims THF does good work and is being sullied by individuals who he wants to bring to justice.



But Persephone continues her hacks at THF's website, revealing that their Mathematical Forcasting Initiative project may be being used, not to further humanity in the world, but to help start wars.  Then, another hack shows us a scandal in South Africa, where THF is linked with illegal organ harvesting.  Comatose patients were being kept alive against family wishes for the sole purpose of taking their organs, in one of their "charitable hospitals". 

Meanwhile, it appears that more "good guys" have joined Persephone's cause.  They are just Verizon technicians who were contracted to do some work for THF.  However, in doing so, they stumble upon some of the same evidence for evildoings, and decide they will make a website where they can help Persephone get the word out, called "The Retrievers of Truth". 



The front of the site appears to be a bizarre page of a character named Dr. Vincent "Wally" Bole (anagrams to "yellow lab"; pictured above middle), who believes that laborador retrievers have strange clairvoyant abilities--his site has many weird references to LOST's Vincent.  To add to the silly world of funny-looking characters, there is also a personality named Mandrake Wig (anagrams to "waking dream"; pictured above right), friend to "Wally", who gives us hints through newsletters, a blog, and a photo album.  It is believed that both "Wally" and "Manny" are not "real people" (even in this ARG world), but rather made up by the Verizon technicians in the story, as a means to give us cryptic hints.  Behind the scenes, these technicians (we call them the "ROT guys") are conspiring against THF, in a hidden, password-protected forum. 

Getting back to Persephone, she reveals a letter from Dr. Armand Zander (hospital director of the Vik Institute, a THF-sponsored mental health hospital in Iceland) to Dr. Mittelwerk, threatening to resign over an issue of a "secret ward where experiments are done on autistic savant patients and their memory, which he has no clinical access to".  On DJ Dan's podcast, there is a caller who refers to the Vik Institute and talks about the same information.  Another caller hints that the autistic savants are being used to calculate nuclear fission.

Persephone reveals a big LOST spoiler at this point, showing us what the DHARMA acronym stands for:



(Learn more about heuristics, a theory of learning and problem-solving in psychology HERE)

The next time she hacks, she gives more interesting information about a huge off-shore antenna in the Sea of Japan, which is part of THF's Electromagnetic Research Initiative (ERI) project, but causing deformed fish and electrical interference problems for local Koreans.

She also reveals a letter by a doctor who treated Alvar Hanso of a heart attack while he was overseas.  She is trying to seek him out to give him some blood test results which are "most unusual" (she doesn't give specifics), and has tried in vain to reach him for months, unable to find him at any address.  Video camera footage of Alvar's office shows he hasn't been there in years.  This sequence then culminates in some screenshots of secret instant messenger messages from Dr. Zander to Persephone, leading into The Hanso Foundation website being shut down.  Instead of the usual welcoming page, there is a red warning message, saying that THF has been subject to too much hacking by an unknown perpetrator and that they will not go back online until this situation is resolved.

In one final hack, there is a short DHARMA "orientation test video" from 1980 that is shown:



A huge number of sometimes random, bizarre, or LOST-referencing images are flashed by in rapid-fire sequence (view the video HERE.  Note the new logo, which resembles Alvar Hanso's profile in the window.

Persephone leaves us with the final questions:

Who were they? Where did they go? Why didn't they return? Whatever happened to the DHARMA Initiative?

[Pandora]

ACT II:

Meet Rachel Blake:



Turns out, she is... You guessed it! Persephone!

She says she has been hacking into their website in order to bring THF down for their evil deeds. She finally decided to reveal her true identity (in a hidden video) to us (the ARG players) because she thinks they already know who she is, and she wants us to know too, so we can help her.

She has a website, where the front page seems like a page chronicling an ordinary recreational European vacation.  However, like the ROT site, she's hiding a backsite, a blog where she gives us hints on how to find various hidden videos.

The first clue is from a mysterious poster who goes by the pseudonym Mel0Drama, who says he is an insider who can help her hide videos (though Rachel doesn't entirely trust him).

In Coppenhagen, Rachel tails Mittelwerk to a place called "Allied Coppenhagen Marine Merchants".  Shortly thereafter, she received information about the ship, "The Black Rock" (same ship as from LOST).  The page of a book shows that it was once a Danish merchant ship converted to a slave ship in the 1800s by Magnus Hanso, who Rachel later suggests is Alvar's grandfather.  Supposedly, it was shipwrecked, and never seen again.



Rachel also has been in communication with a man who goes by the pseudonym WTK.  It turns out that his name is William T. Kilpatrick, a sales rep for Jeep-Daimler, who originally had a deal with THF to sell them 23 of their vehicles.  Eventually the deal fell through, because Rachel starts revealing to him that the vehicles are "being used to hurt people" (she never says exactly how, but it is inferred from many of her hints that it is associated with the organ harvesting scandal in South Africa).  WTK is horrified by this, and makes a video apology to DJ Dan; it appears Rachel has now won someone else over to the cause.

Rachel follows Hugh McIntyre around, and sees him with his then unidentified mistress. 



It turns out that she is an employee of the Global Welfare Consortium, so we have more corruption!  At this point, Rachel starts getting harrassed from someone who posts to her blog as GidgetGirl, and seems opposed to Rachel's digging up dirty laundry because she thinks she is "ruining lives".  Slowly, GidgetGirl becomes more of an ally to Rachel than a hindrance, though she is still hiding something...

At the same time, Rachel continues following Mittelwerk as well.  She sees him talking to a Korean man, who turns out to be an associate of Mr. Paik's (likely Sun's father from the show).  Apparently, they are talking about a mysterious ship that Mittelwerk has contracted for Paik to build him, which Rachel later finds out is called the Helgus Antonius:



Mittelwerk at some point also drops some mysterious maps of islands, which later turn out to lead to Sri Lanka.  While in Coppenhagen, Rachel gets a hold of a letter refering to drug reformulation trials called "Project Sumo", arranged by a Dr. Kini for a contract laboratory called Lewis King Laboratories for THF.  Few other details are given, except that they are going well. 

While in Coppenhagen, Rachel sees a man (who was seen previously as Mittelwerk's driver) break into her room and go through her stuff.  Not knowing Rachel is hiding in the bathroom, the man talks on his cell phone and says he will "fix" things.  Thinking that he is there to hurt her, she knocks him unconscious with an iron, and leaves the city.



Rachel ends up in Iceland, where she is following a lead about the Vik Institute that GidgetGirl gave her.  Apparently there was a huge fire there, and a mathematician by the name of Vigi Benoffski was killed in the mysterious subbasement (previously mentioned in the hacks) where visitors were not allowed after hours.

Rachel finally is able to arrange a meeting with Dr. Armand Zander, director of the Vik Institute:



He is reluctant to talk at first, but finally gives up the goods on the whole operation.  He says that the "secret ward" was not full of patients at all, but full of mathematicians, incarcerated against their will to work on a project involving the Valenzetti Equation.  He says the autistic savants were there for the same reason--forced to be "computational machines".  Somehow, the hieroglyphics (the same ones from LOST, which are now confirmed to mean "Underworld" by TPTB) are involved in this formula, though it is not yet clear just how.

Shortly after this meeting, Zander ends up missing, and Rachel believes they killed him because of what he knew, and she fears she is next.

Meanwhile, the ROT guys have been hard at work behind the scenes, gradually feeding us small clues that when put together, lead to an important letter:



It appears that THF has been investigating various island sites, evaluating them for suitability for a project called "SPIDER PROTOCOL"; details are not given about what the project is at this point.

A caller to DJ Dan (who claims to be a mathematical forecaster), now supplies additional information on Valenzetti's background.  He says that in 1963, he was hired by the U.N. to help predict things for the good of humanity, but that he supposedly died unexpectedly in a suspicious plane crash.  He believes THF arranged it, and has been using Valenzetti's equations for their own purposes since.



Following this lead, Rachel goes to San Remo, Italy, where Valenzetti is said to be from.  She films Mittelwerk, McIntyre, Thompson and GWC higher-ups in secret conference, and at one point sees some dissention in the ranks between Mittelwerk and Thompson.  She speculates that Valenzetti may not be dead after all.  She also hints that her mother is dead and she never knew her father, and that part of the reason for her involvement may be that she is tied to this story through a familial connection.  She later makes a secret recording of a nurse who she unsuccessfully tries to bribe, who tells her that Mittelwerk received experimental life extension treatments and had something done to his bloodwork that was unusual.

DJ Dan, meanwhile, has a podcast about cults, where one caller claims that his grandmother was at the University of Michigan when she joined a cult called the "Karma Imperitive or something like that" and ran off to the South Pacific to a place called "The Flame", never to be heard from again (believed to be a reference to Karen DeGroot).

While in Italy, GidgetGirl reveals to Rachel that her true identity is Darla Taft, and that she in fact is Hugh McIntyre's mistress from the GWC, and that's why she was critical in the beginning.  However, Rachel has won her over to the cause of fighting for what's right, and she tries to arrange to meet her in a park in France to exchange information.  Rachel goes to France, but Darla never shows up.  When she gets back to the hotel, Rachel finds out that Darla and Hugh were killed in a car "accident" that was probably arranged by THF. 

Rachel is scared that they'll get to her next, and at just that moment, someone starts shooting through her window.  "The Fixer" (the guy she hit in the head with an iron) bursts through the door and chases Rachel, all of which she records on her hidden glasses camera.  However, there's a twist when it's revealed that "The Fixer" says he is not trying to hurt her, but protect her from the real henchmen.  He says he was originally hired by THF to do the job, but changed his mind, as he discovered the real facts of the case.  He gives Rachel the key to Darla's apartment.

At the apartment, Rachel discovers that Darla left her a tape of herself before she died.   She also left her maps of Sri Lanka, a packet on the SPIDER PROTOCOL, and detailed plans for the Helgus Antonius, which turns out to be a huge hospital ship with all the wards labeled "Quarantine".



Rachel leaves for Sri Lanka with the plane tickets also included in the package.

[Pandora]

ACT III:

This phase is believed to begin with Comic Con '06 (San Diego).  Rachel Blake (in-character) interrupts the LOST panel Q&A session, and accuses the LOST writers of being liars and protecting The Hanso Foundation.  They laugh it off and say LOST is just a story, and that the references to THF are not any indication they are hiding anything.  She shouts many references about Joop, Mittelwerk, Africa, Hugh & Darla, and Alvar Hanso.

View the video of the outburst HERE.

She is eventually led off by security, but not before she introduces the new site, hansoexposed.com.  It appears to be simply a site for cataloguing, ordering and playing video fragments--70 in total--which eventually are to be pieced together into one video that she shot while in Sri Lanka.



When the video clips are all found and ordered, it shows Mittelwerk teaching a class of DHARMA recruits, and then showing a new orientation video, which has never been seen before, with a new logo.



It turns out that the narrator is Alvar Hanso himself, and that this most important video gives a LOT of connections to Lost, including explaining (to some degree) DHARMA, the Valenzetti Equation, The Numbers, The Sickness, the radio tower, and the medicine and food drops on the Island.  The key idea is that The Numbers are meant to be "core factors" in this equation to predict the end of humankind, and DHARMA was working towards changing these values.  Afterwards, Mittelwerk says that they failed, and now they must go and experiment with a vaccine in a remote village, lying to the locals there to get them to think they are helping them.  According to him, they are looking for key genetic targets, and trying to produce a mortality rate of 30%, a verified figure from the Vik Institute.  At the end, he catches Rachel trying to videotape everything, and tries to catch her.



View the video HERE on YouTube completed.

[Spoiler=Full Transcript][Music plays]
© 1975 The Hanso Foundation * ORIENTATION *

Alvar Hanso:
I'm Alvar Hanso. If you are watching this film, you already know and have worked with Gerald and Karen DeGroot, founders and masterminds of the DHARMA Initiative.
By now, you also know there are many research goals for our joint venture. What you may not know, is why we have assembled the DHARMA Initiative, why we have assembled the greatest minds in the world and given them unlimited funds and access.

As with all you've already been told, you are bound by your honor and commitment to keep what you are about to hear a secret. In a few weeks, after your induction counseling and survival training, you and your colleagues will be shipped to a top secret facil[ity...]
The precise location of the facility is known only to myself, the DeGroots, and the few high ranking members of my organization. Why all the security, all the secrecy? The answer is simple: Your research is intended to do nothing less than save the world as we know it.

In 1962, only thirteen years ago, the world came to the brink of nuclear war. The United States and the Soviet Union almost fulfilled the promise of mutual assured destruction. A promise they continue to foster through a destructive Cold War. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both nations decided to find a solution. The result was the Valenzetti Equation. Commissioned under the highest secrecy, through the U.N. Security Council, the equation is the brainchild of the Italian mathematician Enzo Valenzetti. It predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself. Whether through nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population...
The results are chilling, and attention must be paid...
Valenzetti gave numerical values to the core environmental and human factors in his equation: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Only by manipulating the environment, by finding scientific solutions to our problems we will be able to change those core factors, and give humanity a chance to survive.
Although the equation has been buried by those who commissioned it [STATIC] panic. It has always been my belief that we ignore warnings at our own peril; and thus, the DHARMA Initiative was born.

DHARMA is an acronym for Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications. It also stands for the one true way. [STATIC] ...and through your research, you will help human... [STATIC].
We have constructed several stations on the island, underground laboratories with the facilities you will need to do your research, with optimal expediency...all of the support you will need, including regular medicine and food drops will be made in perpetuity.

A radio transmitter has also been erected on the island broadcasting in a frequency and encryption known only to us. The transmitter will only broadcast the core numerical values of the Valenzetti Equation. When, through your research, you manage to change the numerical value of any one of these factors, when you have created through science the [unaudible] ... We will know that the one true way has been found.

That is the work to which you have committed yourself. Change the core values of the Valenzetti Equation, and you will change the course of destiny. The fate of the human race is in your hands.
Thank you and namaste.

Thomas Mittelwerk:
We all know what happened - the DHARMA Initiative failed and in spite of every effort of the Foundation, we are gripped in the tyranny of those six numbers.
We have tried to change those values by manipulating the environment in many, many ways. We have done our level best, and yet this inscrutable equation keeps bringing us back to the numbers. So now, we have to take radical action and I just want to tell all of you, that I trust you to do what is best.

The villages of Filan and Vetul-Milani have allowed us to test our vaccine on them. They think they are infected by a virus carried by local macaques and they believe we are bringing them the cure, so when you go in, you have to keep up the story. You know it by heart, don't waver. When the deaths begin you must comfort everyone with compassion and empathy then the bodies of the dead must be brought to the station immediately for full genetic work-up. We must make absolute certain we are hitting precise genetic targets we have engineered into the virus.

The optimal mortality rate is 30 percent. Our operatives at the Vik Institute have verified this figure. If more or less people succumb, we have failed. We need not take any more lives than is absolutely necessary.

Yes?

Scientist #1:
[Raises hand]
But Tom, these are people, innocent human beings, and we're just-

Mittelwerk:
If you knew, with mathematical certainty, that you could end all famine, war, and poverty, what would you do? Exactly, you'd find the best way to get it done - precisely, surgically, without allowing for any more suffering than is absolutely necessary. (Sigh)

It is not fair that innocents have to die so that we can perfect this virus but I promise you, someone is going to hell...

Is there something reflecting in the back?

Rachel Blake:
Oh God!

Mittelwerk:
Somebody grab her!

Hey! Hey! Get her!
(incomprehensible shouting)

Blake:
No! Get off me! Get off! No!

Scientist #2:
We got her.

Blake:
Get off me! No! It's- [/spoiler]

[Pandora]

ACT IV:

This appears to be a relatively short "interum" phase before the grand finale, and may overlap with part of Act III. 

This phase contains some coded correspondences between Rachel and Malik.  She filled us in on what happened in Sri Lanka; apparently, she was nearly caught, but was saved by Malik's friend de Zylva.  Unfortunately, he did not make it out of Sri Lanka, but she did with her video.  Malik convinces her to meet him in front of her old apartment in New York City.

Much of the focus from this act was on Apollo Candy Company, which has an official website at apollocandy.com.  It was founded in 1962 by a man called M. David Benson, but appears to have been taken over by the Hanso Foundation in the 1970s, to save it from bankruptcy. 



A confidential memo from a research lab contracted by THF shows that Apollo Candy contains psychotropic ingredients and may aid in viral spread.

However, Rachel's anonymous informant Mel0Drama appears to have succeeded in sabotaging the chocolate factory production line (given in a secret sign language video), so that it would actually produce chocolates with clues to help friends of Rachel.  In over a dozen cities in the U.S. and U.K., real Apollo candy bars were given out to real people.  Printed on the bar itself was the site, WhereIsAvar.com, where people who obtained bars could post photographs of themselves holding them.  A handful of these bars were considered 'special' Golden Oracle bars, which had a seal on the back. 

When the counter reached 100%, Rachel posted the word UNITE, and reminded us to listen to DJ Dan's next live podcast. 

[Pandora]

ACT V:

This short phase is the finale of The Lost Experience.  It is believed to have started when a video surfaced of William T. Kilpatrick interrupting a Jeep promotional live event in Michigan to try and expose The Hanso Foundation's involvement in the earlier illegal harvesting scandal.  He didn't get to finish, and was dragged off into the back of a van, and kidnapped in broad daylight by Hanso goons.



Evidence is also hidden on the site that uncovers the details of the organ harvesting scandal, and a chat log shows that Rachel was chatting with someone using Kilpatrick's screenname, but who was actually his kidnapper, up to no good.  He hinted that something awful had been done to Kilpatrick for his betrayel of THF.

On DJ Dan's final live podcast, a caller patched him into the live audio feed of a secure police line.  Law enforcement were raiding THF international headquarters, after Rachel's information had been made public.  However, it was a trap set by Mittelwerk, who blew up the building, destroying evidence and escaping capture. 

Rachel herself phones in at the end, and leads us to her last video.  It was shot in Norway, where she has finally tracked down Alvar Hanso.

The truth is out--Alvar Hanso was kept near-prisoner in his home due to medical treatments (life extension? never fully explained) by Mittelwerk, but did nothing to stop his unethical activities.  Towards the end, the big reveal is given, and what many suspected: that Rachel Blake is in fact his daughter.  She had traced the funding for her education back to The Hanso Foundation, and that is how she got started researching the organization.

View it HERE.

Shortly thereafter, TheHansoFoundation.org went back up with an official statement (something of an apology and explanational letter) from Alvar Hanso.



However, hidden within the letter is a secret "hack" message from Mittelwerk, vowing that we have not heard the last of him yet:

"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."

THE END (?)

[Pandora]

List of Direct Connections to LOST and Potential S3 Spoilers

• The Hanso Foundation background:  40 year old "philanthropic" organization that funds DHARMA, actually has many dark secrets.  Almost all the projects involved: Mathematical Forecasting Initiative, Worldwide Wellness and Prevention Development Program, Mental Health Appeal, Electromagnetic Research Initiative, Institute of Genomic Advancement and the Life Extension Program, have a hidden evil agenda.
• Through their experimental research in Africa, THF may have been directly responsible for the spread of a deadly strain of meningococcal infection from non-human primates to Man.
• Alvar Hanso, the founder of the organization, had been missing since 2002.  There is apparently something very unusual about his bloodwork (not yet explained), and hints that he may have tried some of the life extension treatments himself.
• The Others may know of Hanso's work directly, since Tom quotes him.
• There are hints that the tattooed sharks of LOST are genetically engineered.
• Widmore Corporation may also be tied to THF and helping them with some projects (unknown specifics, rumors that they were working on electromagnetic weapon).
• DHARMA stands for Department of Heuristics And Research in Material Applications.
• Valenzetti (from the blast door map) was a mathematician who supposedly found an equation to predict the apocalypse.  THF stole his secrets and started using them for evil purposes.  Part of this may include using autistic savants to calculate nuclear fission experiment data.  The equations somehow include the same hieroglyphics as seen on the countdown clock, as representative symbols.
• Magnus Hanso is Alvar's grandfather.  He owned The Black Rock, and used it for shipping slaves (even after the abolition of slavery).  It was eventually shipwrecked (supposedly) and never heard from again.
• THF contracted Mr. Paik's organization to build him a giant hospital ship called the Helgus Antonius.  It is not yet known what it was used for, but all the wards on board were quarantined.
• As part of THF's electromagnetism research, they have a huge radio antenna tower in the Sea of Japan that is causing a lot of interference in Korea, and fish deformities in the area.
• There is a hint that Karen DeGroot may have gone herself to the South Pacific to Flame Station.
• There is a top secret DHARMA project called Spider Protocol, which sought the perfect "island target" for some time before settling on a location.  There is information in Sri Lanka about this project.
• There are two new orientation film logos introduced that have not been seen before (one for the psychology video, one for the Sri Lanka video).  The former includes quick flashes of over a hundred images (some reminiscent of LOST), as though trying to plant subliminal images in the viewer's mind.  The latter is a very spoilerish orientation video which explains (to a limited degree) the connection of DHARMA to The Numbers, the Sickness, the Island, and the Valenzetti Equation.  Alvar Hanso is seen as a bearded man narrating.  Apparently, The Numbers themselves are "core factors" in the complex apocalyptic equation, with each one predicting a means for humanity to extinguish itself.  DHARMA was trying to change one of those values, possibly through spread of a transgenic virus, but failed.
• Thomas Werner Mittelwerk was the President of THF while Hanso was missing, and is obsessed with using science to manipulate the values of the Valenzetti Equation also; and would stop at no end.  The number that was verified for "optimal mortality rate" by the Vik Institute was 30%, and he was determined to achieve this through experimentation with the virus and a vaccine on innocent villagers in a remote area.  Mittelwerk was basically running THF and using it for his own agenda until these secrets were released, and law enforcement raided the headquarters.  However, Mittelwerk blew up the building, escaped, and vowed to use the virus in the future to continue his work.
• Alvar Hanso is finally found in Norway; it turns out he was a relative prisoner for health reasons.  He reveals that he is the father of The Lost Experience's heroine hacker, Rachel Blake (the girl who uncovered all the above secrets).

[Geronimo Jackson]

.[spoiler]"The Black Rock" is in fact a picture of the HMS Victory (a battleship) that was etched in 1884; now in dry dock in Portsmouth, UK.[/spoiler] this is from you.
I have this excpert form the "book"on Locke Mozambique and the Black Rock, topic from what Rachel Blacke  is now saying, we are to take this passagee from the book as historical fact (given she is a made up character?) that is an awful ot of  revising history isn't it?(reread soem ofthe facts researched in tehabove mentioned  forum) Curiouser and curiouser "said Alice

[Pandora]

GJ: Yeah, it's dumb that they can't come up with something new in their graphics dept that doesn't manipulate an actual historical photo... but just didn't include it here in storyline only, because the fact that it was photoshopped from a RL battleship doesn't appear relevant to the plot now.  I think they just got lazy.  PS:  I shortened your quote of my post to just the picture of TBR book passage, please don't quote really long passages unless you need to.

[Jugdish]

Thanks Pandora for the summary. I really enjoyed being caught up and look forward to more information. It had to take a lot of work, but it is truely appreciated.

I do not like (or maybe understand) the  references to show lost not being a show and the writers saying that it is. If they are trying to tie Lost to the real world, wouldn't it just be better to not discuss this part at all?

[Pandora]

Thanks Pandora for the summary. I really enjoyed being caught up and look forward to more information. It had to take a lot of work, but it is truely appreciated.

I do not like (or maybe understand) the  references to show lost not being a show and the writers saying that it is. If they are trying to tie Lost to the real world, wouldn't it just be better to not discuss this part at all?

Juggy, you're welcome... as for the the LOST reference, you are not alone at all.  I personally feel like the way they are tying in the show as "just being a show" is needlessly confusing for the storyline.  Most ARGs try to fully engulf you in the story... I think this one doesn't do a great job, because they are trying to make LOST "just a show" (maybe one based on real life facts, when it comes down to it, but again, too many layers of reality for most people to want to follow).  I think they would have been better off just denying knowledge of the show, also. 

[Geronimo Jackson]

GJ: Yeah, it's dumb that they can't come up with something new in their graphics dept that doesn't manipulate an actual historical photo... but just didn't include it here in storyline only, because the fact that it was photoshopped from a RL battleship doesn't appear relevant to the plot now.  I think they just got lazy.  PS:  I shortened your quote of my post to just the picture of TBR book passage, please don't quote really long passages unless you need to.

It is lazy and historically inaccurate Copying the ship and making up passage in book..Sorry if post was long,I thought I had deliberately only quoted one relevant sentence of what you wrote.  Am I grounded?

[Jugdish]

Pandora, I agree with you. We know lost is just a show and to say that it is just a show but the experience is real is silly. They want us to be involved in both, just act like it is all real or deny it like you suggested.

[Pandora]

GJ: Yeah, it's dumb that they can't come up with something new in their graphics dept that doesn't manipulate an actual historical photo... but just didn't include it here in storyline only, because the fact that it was photoshopped from a RL battleship doesn't appear relevant to the plot now.  I think they just got lazy.  PS:  I shortened your quote of my post to just the picture of TBR book passage, please don't quote really long passages unless you need to.

It is lazy and historically inaccurate Copying the ship passage in book..Sorry if post was long,I thought I had deliberately only quoted one relevant sentence of what you wrote.  Am I grounded?

Heh, no... just don't copy the whole act, it is long.  And with the book passage.... just to be clear, that book page is made up.  We don't think it came from a real book, it was one that was made up for the ARG.  Just with the picture, it was photoshopped from the HMS Victory.

[Geronimo Jackson]

Pandora, I agree with you. We know lost is just a show and to say that it is just a show but the experience is real is silly. They want us to be involved in both, just act like it is all real or deny it like you suggested.

I deny it

[Geronimo Jackson]

GJ: Yeah, it's dumb that they can't come up with something new in their graphics dept that doesn't manipulate an actual historical photo... but just didn't include it here in storyline only, because the fact that it was photoshopped from a RL battleship doesn't appear relevant to the plot now.  I think they just got lazy.  PS:  I shortened your quote of my post to just the picture of TBR book passage, please don't quote really long passages unless you need to.

It is lazy and historically inaccurate Copying the ship passage in book..Sorry if post was long,I thought I had deliberately only quoted one relevant sentence of what you wrote.  Am I grounded?

Heh, no... just don't copy the whole act, it is long.  And with the book passage.... just to be clear, that book page is made up.  We don't think it came from a real book, it was one that was made up for the ARG.  Just with the picture, it was photoshopped from the HMS Victory.

Oh I know it is,and the historical facts of the times don't match what is being wriiten there.
So my question if show and game are to be separate how is the black Rock with dynamite on show going to be explained.Are they going to use what was writen in this book?
And thanks for not grounding me