Hurley's Comet
tdciago
to Hurley as a very large, destructive comet, poised to cause a
catastrophic impact event. "Lost" has portrayed Hurley as an
unwilling jinx, who seems to cause death and destruction to those
around him. In other threads, I've posted several references that
point to Hurley as a comet, including Starla's comment that Hurley is
her "rock," and Dave's comment about Hurley's "coma thing." The
nickname Hurley is also, in itself, a huge clue.
COMET BROOKS
(Caps mine)
"William Robert BROOKS (June 11, 1844 – May 3, 1922) was a British-
born American ASTRONOMER, mainly noted as being one of the most
prolific discoverers of new COMETS of all time, second only to Jean-
Louis Pons. He was born in Maidstone, England, the son of a Baptist
minister.
Brooks developed his interest in astronomy during a boyhood voyage to
AUSTRALIA, when he observed a navigator making measurements with a
sextant. As a young man he worked in the SHEPHERD Iron Works in
Buffalo, New York, gaining considerable mechanical and draughtmanship
skills: he went on to become a portrait PHOTOGRAPHER in Phelps before
turning his attention to astronomy full-time. Brooks had a good
knowledge of lens construction, and was able to design and make his
own telescopes, taking a year to grind and polish the optics for his
nine-inch reflector.
Brooks went on to become Director of the Smith Observatory at Hobart
College, Geneva, New York.
He specialized in the discovery of comets, including periodic comets
12P/Pons-Brooks and 16P/Brooks. He also discovered the bright naked-
eye comet C/1911 O1 (Brooks), and was a pioneer of ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Robert_Brooks
_____________________________________________
"Dr. BROOKS was Hurley's doctor at the Santa Rosa Mental Health
Institute. He took a polaroid PHOTO of Hurley and Dave which was
instrumental in showing Hurley that Dave was imaginary.
He was also the one who tried to help Hurley get over the accident he
believed he caused when the deck fell."
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Brooks
tdciago
"Lost" is a show full of flashes: flashbacks, flashforwards, flash-
sideways, "Flashes Before Your Eyes," and even The Flash.
S3E17 Hurley: I'm moving as fast as I can. In case you haven't noticed
dude, I'm not exactly The Flash.
S3E10 Hurley: Mr. Clucks...got hit by a meteor. Or an asteroid. I
don't know the difference, but...it's gone.
bo·lide (bld, -ld)
n.
A meteoric fireball.
[French, from Latin bolis, bolid-, kind of meteor, from Greek,
missile, FLASH (of lightning), ]
"The word bolide comes from the Greek βολις, (bolis) which can mean a
missile or to FLASH. The IAU has no official definition of bolide and
generally considers the term synonymous with fireball. The term is
more often used among geologists than astronomers where it means a
very large impactor. For example, the USGS uses the term to mean a
generic large crater-forming projectile 'to imply that we do not know
the precise nature of the impacting body ... whether it is a rocky or
metallic asteroid, or an icy comet, for example'. Astronomers tend to
use the term to mean an exceptionally bright fireball, particularly
one that explodes (sometimes called a detonating fireball)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#Bolide
S2E15 Claire: I have no idea what happened and now I'm seeing
these... these flashes of things and... you know, I have amnesia.
S3E8 Desmond: When I turned that key...my life...flashed before my
eyes. And then I was back in the jungle. Still on this bloody island.
But those flashes, Charlie? Those flashes...they didn't stop.
S3E8 Charlie: So, you're telling me y...you saw a flash of Claire
drowning this morning.
S3E10 Charlie: Desmond...said I was going to die. He...e...e tells me
he has these flashes, visions...whatever. And in them, I always die.
S3E14 Desmond: Doesn't work like that. I only see flashes.
S3E17 Hurley: Dude, if we're going by pure foot race Supes would get
dusted by The Flash.
S3E17 Hurley: Uh, for charity. And Flash would totally win because he
can like vibrate through walls and stuff.
S3E17 Hurley: In one of your puzzle flashes?
S3E17 Charlie: Yeah, you saw the wire, the flashy thing falling out of
the sky, now what?
S3E17 Hurley: Did that come down with the flashing red light thingy?
S3E17 Charlie The Flash is pathetic.
S3E17 Desmond: The flashes don't happen exactly how I saw them.
S3E18 Charlie: She's just another one of your flashes, who's getting
an arrow in the neck this time.
S3E21 Charlie: Wait. You had one of your flashes again, didn't you?
S3E21 Charlie: No your...your flashes.
S3E22 Charlie: I'm here...to turn off your jamming equipment. It's in
there next to the flashing yellow light.
S3E23 Charlie: You get any flashes?
tdciago
"The COmet Nucleus TOUR (CONTOUR) was a NASA Discovery-class space
probe that failed shortly after launch. It had as its primary
objective close flybys of two comet nuclei with the possibility of a
flyby of a third known comet or an as-yet-undiscovered comet...
After ignition on 15 August 2002 of the solid rocket motor intended to
inject the spacecraft into solar orbit, contact with the probe could
not be re-established. Ground-based telescopes later found three
objects along the course of the satellite, leading to the speculation
that it had been destroyed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONTOUR
"When CONTOUR was to have fired its onboard motor to depart from Earth
orbit on August 15, contact with the spacecraft was lost. Telescopic
surveys were used to locate three objects near the spacecraft's
predicted position assuming the firing had been partially successful."
nasascience.nasa.gov/missions/contour
S1E1 Seth Norris: Six hours in. Our radio went out, no one could see
us. We turned back to land in Fiji, by the time we hit turbulence we
were 1000 miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong
place.
Flight 815 (and the fake wreckage in the Sunda Trench) broke into
three sections.
tdciago
(Dirt, Hairspray, Rocks, and a Big Bear)
C/1861 J1 (Great Comet of 1861)
"This comet was independently discovered by David Livingston on July
6, who was then traveling down the Shire River near present day
Blantyre, Malawi, in Africa. He noted 'a large comet in Ursa Major'
and estimated the tail length as 23 degrees...John Kirk, who was
traveling independent of Livingston down the Shire River, in Africa
wrote, 'This night we got sight of a splendid comet in the Great Bear
moving rapidly from the sun.' Heis said the brightness equalled Gamma
Ursae Majoris (magnitude 2.44)"
http://cometography.com/lcomets/1861j1.html
In the episode "Further Instructions," Locke saves Eko from a polar
bear by doing the following:
1) Covering himself in dirt.
2) Throwing a rock at the bear.
3) Using a can of hairspray as a blow torch.
Comets are described as "dirty snowballs," or alternately as "icy
dirtballs." In this episode, Locke covers himself with dirt to face
the polar bear, and he also finds a Tonka dump truck in the cave. He
has to save Eko in order to clean up his own mess.
Comets can break up and hurl rocks (meteoroids). Not only does Locke
throw a rock at the bear, but Desmond is seen at the end of this
episode throwing rocks into the ocean. Some scientists believe that
comets were responsible for creating Earth's oceans by bringing water
to this planet.
"The word comet came to the English language through the Latin cometes
from the Greek word komē, meaning 'hair of the head'; Aristotle first
used the derivation komētēs to depict comets as 'stars with hair.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
Locke uses the can of aerosol hairspray like a blow torch to scare
away the bear. "As a comet approaches the inner solar system, solar
radiation causes the volatile materials within the comet to vaporize
and stream out of the nucleus, carrying dust away with them. The
streams of dust and gas thus released form a huge, extremely tenuous
atmosphere around the comet called the coma, and the force exerted on
the coma by the Sun's radiation pressure and solar wind cause an
enormous tail to form, which points away from the sun."
In Locke's flashback, a cop stops him and notes of Locke's truck:
"Tail light's out."
What we saw in "Further Instructions" was an artistic representation
of a comet near one of the bear constellations (Ursa Major or Ursa
Minor).
Darren Delgado
> used the derivation komçtçs to depict comets as 'stars with hair.'"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
>
> Locke uses the can of aerosol hairspray like a blow torch to scare
> away the bear. "As a comet approaches the inner solar system, solar
> radiation causes the volatile materials within the comet to vaporize
> and stream out of the nucleus, carrying dust away with them. The
> streams of dust and gas thus released form a huge, extremely tenuous
> atmosphere around the comet called the coma, and the force exerted on
> the coma by the Sun's radiation pressure and solar wind cause an
> enormous tail to form, which points away from the sun."
>
> In Locke's flashback, a cop stops him and notes of Locke's truck:
> "Tail light's out."
>
> What we saw in "Further Instructions" was an artistic representation
> of a comet near one of the bear constellations (Ursa Major or Ursa
> Minor).
Then why use Locke to do it, while the guy who is supposed to be the
comet wasn't involved in the scene at all?
tdciago
> Then why use Locke to do it, while the guy who is supposed to be the
> comet wasn't involved in the scene at all?
I now suspect that all, or at least most, of the Losties are *falling*
stars. Comets. That's why Jacob chose them. He gave them a push.
Certainly K-T Austen and Charlie the rock god have nicknames that hint
at their nature. Claire's mother was even in a *coma* after a
collision. And how many times have we seen Locke fall?
The "enlightened" Others, whose leader is the hidden Nemesis star
(Jacob), and who speak in the language of the constellations, are the
other kind of stars. Danielle and crew are asteroids. Christian is a
centaur, which is classified as both asteroid and comet.
These differences are one source of the "us vs. them" conflicts on the
island. "Others." "One of them." "Raised by Another." And so on.
The Losties are strangers in this place. "Home" is back in the Oort
Cloud. There's also the conflict between DHARMA and the hostiles,
which has strong overtones of "human vs. animal." A long time ago, I
posted the lines of dialogue in which the Others are referred to as
"animals." Isabel even commented that the Others didn't like going to
Hydra, which was the animal research station. The fact that the
Others held Jack, Kate, and Sawyer captive in animal enclosures was
like the tables were being turned. Damon Lindelof made some comments
about Room 23 that hinted there may have been some kind of conversion
process being attempted by DHARMA:
Lost: The Complete Third Season (DVD) Commentary: Damon Lindelof: The
Dharma Initiative was doing all these experiments on animals, so is
that room that Karl was in for humans, or what kind of animals were
they showing those films to? Like, what was really going on there?
Ben's comment, "I'm a Pisces," was very interesting, because I
speculated that what this particular dispute was really about was the
struggle between the Age of Pisces (an animal sign) and the Age of
Aquarius (a human sign). It's Faith vs. Science. The Losties, in
their brief time on the island, chose sides in the struggle.
A couple of things to note about comets and the fact that Jacob
brought the Black Rock to the island:
"Thus, despite appearing brilliant white to observers on Earth,
Halley's comet is in fact pitch black. As it approaches the inner
Solar System, the Sun warms it, causing its surface to sublimate
(change directly from a solid to a gas), and jets of volatile material
to burst from its black surface."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet
"Surprisingly, cometary nuclei are among the darkest objects known to
exist in the solar system...The very darkness of cometary surfaces
allows them to absorb the heat necessary to drive their outgassing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
We've been given clues about Jacob's identity, and they point to the
Sirius system. There's a running gag in the dialogue with the word
"serious" having a double meaning. My favorite is a line from Sayid:
"You're serious? Is there a reason you didn't consult us when you
decided to form your own civilization?"
This is a sculpture showing Atlas holding up the celestial sphere:
http://www.phys.lsu.edu/farnese/images/JHAFarneseProofs_img_0.jpg
To the right of his hand is a dog with rays emanating from its head.
That's Canis Major, which is said to be pulling the Argo Navis with
his tail. You can easily see the ship.
If you look at the Swan mural, you can see the exact same thing. The
dog's eye has rays coming out of it, and it's pulling a ship with its
tail:
http://home.blarg.net/~wayule/graphics/lost_swan_mural.jpg
The scene between Jacob and Samuel on the beach was huge in terms of
deciphering the plot. It finally became clear that Jacob was Nemesis,
and he was periodically nudging comets in this direction. If there's
still confusion about this, it works like this:
Jacob = Jason = Nemesis Star (Death Star, Our Sun's Bad Twin)
Losties = Argonauts = Comets
tdciago
This thread is probably a good place to bring up the concept of Mirror
Matter, which is also called Alice Matter. Given the mirror imagery
on the show, and the references to "Alice in Wonderland," there could
very well be a mirror matter component to the plot. What makes this
even more likely is the fact that mirror matter has been associated
with a theory about lost comets. And the guy proposing the theory is
named Foot. He needs a statue in his honor. :)
"Astronomers have lost thousands of comets. A University of Melbourne
physicist thinks they may still be there, just invisible and some of
them potentially on a collision course with Earth. Dr Robert Foot
suggests that many of the missing comets could be made of an exotic
material called 'mirror matter', a new type of invisible matter that a
small group of physicists believe could be the elusive 'dark matter'."
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/darkmatter-02a.html
EYE M SICK: The Mirror Matter Theory of Lost
eyemsick.blogspot.com/2006/04/mirror-matter-theory-of-lost.html