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Fanon Alert! This article contains tribute art, spin-off fiction, theories, reference and community material created by fans inspired by the show. It is by definition non-canon, but generally distinct from intentionally fake hoaxes or humorous fan parody material.

General

The Island where Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed might be, or have been part of a lost mythical continent.

(note that none of what is discussed below is really referring to a continent -- all of the theories (Atlantis, etc) refer to islands)

Details

The four toed foot and part of its pedestal

• Ben (aka Henry Gale) says that no one will find the island
• Desmond cannot leave the island
• In the season 2 finale, we see a foot of a giant statue (with four toes), pointing to a remnant of a lost civilization.
• Walt might have powers (telepathy, astral travel) often associated with members of legendary races.
• John's father is strapped to a pillard building which looks to influenced by the Greeks.
• The reason no one knows where this island is is because it's where it's not supposed to be, ie. the South Pacific.

Pros/ Positives

• The setting for a great TV show. In fact, in 1987, David Lynch and Mark Frost proposed a comedy to NBC called The Lemurians. The plot was to involve a leak of Lemurian essence from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean threatening the world. NBC rejected the proposal, though Lynch and Frost would later collaborate in the creation of Twin Peaks for ABC in 1990 and 1991.

Cons/ Problems

• If the continent is missing, how did the Dharma Initiative find it in the first place?

Atlantis

Atlantis is a lost civilization that the philosopher Plato describes in some of his works. It was supposedly millennia ahead of its time and sank after a massive earthquake following its loss in the war with Athens. While it is considered an allegory to Greece's own demise, some theorize that it did, in fact, exist.

Details

The island may be the peak of Atlantis's tallest mountains and the remnants of the statue are what's left of an ancient Atlantian temple. The Black Rock (ship) is beached somewhere on the island, suggesting that at some time the island was at least partially "under water".

Pros/ Positives

• The big-four-toed stone foot at the end of season two clearly reminds the architectonic themes of ancient Greek architecture. Atlantis, according to its myth, was located approximately in that period of history.
• The foot having four toes points out at the same time that the ancient dwellers of the Island were anthropomorphic creatures and that they had something different from the rest of mankind. This fits pretty well in the imagery we have of Atlantis: people like us and - at the same time - not really like us.
• Most of the mysterious happenings that take place on the island appear to refer to different fields (premonitions, hallucinations, unexplicable technologies, epidemics, geomagnetism) that would hardly find one single explanation, or at least one single source for all explanations. Considering, anyway, that in the western imagery we commonly look at Atlantis as to an island where people had some sort of superior wisdom that included magic and technology at the same time, the Island being Atlantis would explain much of these different phenomena.

• Walt - who is one of the more "mystically" involved characters of the whole story - at a certain stage of the first Season is reading a Spanish comic, with a polar bear appearing in one of the pages. Polar bears appear in two different occasions in the series, attacking Walt in one. In the same comic (zooming on which the cameraman keenly indulged during that episode), on another page was drawn a big city-island under a big glass dome, in an Arctic environment. Considering the parallel between the fictional and the real polar bears, it's likely that also the drawing of the city-island means something - Atlantis? It should be considered, also, that according to modern legends and theories about it, the inhabitants of Atlantis would have originated from the North Pole.
• Atlantis had knowledge millennia ahead of us. This could also include technology. This might be the technology present on the island, and as known, when The Numbers aren't pressed on time, a discharge takes place causing destruction. This destruction might have caused Atlantis to disappear.
• The island is portable, so it can explain how Atlantis became lost.
• The island gets sucked into the ocean, or it could appear to sink. Just like Atlantis.
• The suppossedly native inhabitant of the island, Richard Alpert, has a latin-mediterranean aspect

Cons/ Problems

• It is taken as writ that the losties are somewhere in the south-pacific. The words Atlantis and Atlantic are derived from the same root (Atlas, the Greek titan), and so it is that most scholars and hunters turn to the Atlantic Ocean for the most viable spot.
  • Since we now know that the island is portable, it is possible that once it was actually in the Atlantic, and now it's not.
• There exists no rock solid proof that Atlantis ever existed, most who believe in or support such the existence do so relying on little and unstable evidence.
  • On the other hand, there's no need of any proof of the existence of Atlantis to make a show about it, in the same way in which Roland Emmerich could direct Independence Day without any proof that Aliens existed and actually wanted to exterminate mankind.
• The Black Rock is not a reliable example of the fact that the island may have been partially underwater. If the ship itself was underwater for any period of time, none of the dynamite on it would be combustible, and it would not have sweat nitroglycerin, eventually killing Dr. Arzt.
  • It could have run aground on the shore at the time but now it's inland as it has progressively risen.
  • Plus, Damon and Carlton confirmed in a Podcast that the Black Rock was brought to the Island the same way as Flight 815 by an electromagnetic anomaly due to the massive presence of metal on the boat.

Lemuria

Many fans see Lemuria, which is essentially the same as Mu as a natural candidate for the island.

Details

• Lemuria is a 19th century supposition to account for discontinuities in biogeography that were emerging in the fossil record. Lemurs are only observed in Madagascar, but their fossils were turning up as far flung as Pakistan and China. To account for this distribution Philip Sclater, an eminent zoologist, proposed that a continent that had previously connected the land masses had sunk into the sea.

• Many writers, pseudo-archeologists, psychics and the Tamil people believe Lemuria is an ancient land with a complex and rich social history, which is now lost (much like Atlantis).

• Lemuria is known as the Atlantis of the Pacific, and it is presumed that the Island is located in the Pacific.

• Stone monuments of mysterious origin dot the entire Pacific, from Japan's underwater site at Yonaguni, to cryptic Petroglyphs on Hawaii's Big Island, to Easter Island's Moai

• Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an author who claimed his psychic readings affirmed the existence of Atlantis and Lemuria. He wrote that survivors of Atlantis and Lemuria had concealed beneath it a "Hall of Records" containing all the wisdom of their lost civilization and the true history of the human race. Cayce claimed to have prophesied this Hall of Records would be rediscovered and re-opened.
  • Cayce called Lemuria, Zu or Oz
    • There are many Wizard of Oz references in LOST.
  • Cayce maintained that the Lemurians were a psychically advanced Race.
  • The five main themes of Cayce's work are closely related to the events on island, and those of the Hanso Foundation and the Dharma Initiative: (1) Health-Related Information; (2) Philosophy and Reincarnation; (3) Dreams and Dream Interpretation; (4) ESP and Psychic Phenomena; and (5) Spiritual Growth, Meditation, and Prayer.
  • In addition one of his main themes was his belief in The Duality of Man - According to Cayce, Atlantean and Lemurian society was divided into two long-lived political factions - a "good" faction called the "Sons of the Law of One," and an "evil" faction called the "Sons of Belial."
    • Henry Gale claims John Locke is "one of the good ones." This might imply there is a "good" and a "bad" faction on the island.
  • The Island may speak through dreams. There is a relation with Eko's dream, Locke's Dream, Claire's dream and Charlie's dream.
    • Edgar Cayce stated: "God may speak to us through dreams. Dreams may be taken as warnings, as advice, as conditions to be met, conditions to be viewed in a way and manner as lessons, as truths, as they are presented."

Pros/ Positives

• The Castaways are presumed to be in the Pacific, the mythical Location of Lemuria
• Wizard of Oz References Point to Lemuria
• If one holds down "Alt" and type 4 8 15 16 23 42 [minus spaces] into notepad [or any program using System as its font] the result will be µ; the symbol for Mu.
  • In actuality, only the last four numbers, 15 16 23 42, need to be entered to get µ.
• In physics the symbol µ represents the magnetic permeability of a material.
• It is believed by some that the Garden of Eden was located here (Adam and Eve)
• It is believed that the Lemurians used underground passageways to manuveur around the island

Cons/ Problems

• Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography. But current knowledge of the mechanisms of plate tectonics rules out the possibility of a major continent having existed in the Pacific.
  • Again, just because it has been ruled out in real life doesn't mean that it can't exist in the context of a fictional TV show.

Links

1. Atlantis
2. Lemuria
3. Mu