The time loop Theory
"Early 1800’s: The Black Rock was a slave boat crossing the Pacific. The boat was transporting a large assortment of metallic minerals, which were highly reactive to other forces of magnetism. Unexpectedly, the boat encounters the island of LOST. Being that the island has unique magnetic properties, the magnetic materials on the boat “react” with the magnetic forces on the island, and the boat is literally hoisted onto the island. The boat, having strong levels of magnetism, creates a hole in the invisible bubble that surrounds the island – this hole is at coordinate “305”, or the “special location/coordinate” that Daniel’s team travels through to get to the island. Once the Black Rock crashes, the leaders aboard the ship, including Alvar Hanso, begin studies on the magnetic aspects of the island. Their descendents ultimately form the DHARMA initiative in the late 1900’s.
1960’s: The DHARMA initiative was created for the enhancement of the human race. What initially began as a simple research initiative developed into a massive project that was designed to test fate. At some point during DHARMA’S studies, someone managed to leverage the magnetic properties of the island to bend time and space – thus, a time machine was created.
The time machine serves two different functions:
1. one piece of the machine is synced up to the magnetic anomoly that encloses the island. It has the ability to send the entire island back in time - to as far back as when the time machine was created. At the end of season 4, Ben turns the crank to "move the island" back in time to when the machine was created.
2. The time machine also is a phycial device that can transport an individual human back in time, to as far back in time as when the machine was created.
In the beginning stages of testing the time machine, DHARMA chose to run tests on animals (namely, polar bears), as to avoid creating any time-related catastrophes or paradoxes. The first...