Island Timeline



I hope this will help me figure out what's going on when and what side people are on. Please contribute and make corrections. The dates come from Lostpedia which is not canon, but is pretty close.

100 BC? - Days of the 4-Toed statue; Locke puts the Donkey Wheel back on its axis and turns it

1845 - Black Rock disappears. Magnus Hanso was captain of the Black Rock.

1954 - Richard Alpert and a band of Latin speaking Others including young Charles Widmore and Ellie are on Island and view it as THEIR Island
- US Army arrives on Island with 18 men and Jughead. 18 Army people die on orders from Alpert's superior.
- The Left Behinders (LBs) jump to 1954 and Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Charlotte plus 2 redshirts interact with Alpert's Others.  Both Alpert and Ellie are told about the time skipping.

1970s - The Dharma Initiative (DI) funded by Alvar Hanso begins building stations on the Island. They create a station, The Arrow to deal with the hostile indigenous population presumably Alpert's Others.

1970 - Charlotte Staples Lewis born

1973 - Young Ben Linus joins the DI and arrives on Island with his dad.
- The Hostiles, presumably led by Alpert, attack DI facilities
- Young Ben sees his mom and in an effort to find her encounters Richard Alpert

1974 - Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Miles, Daniel and presumably Rose, Bernard, Vincent and any other remaining 815ers end up here after Locke turns the wheel
Hostiles kill DI member Paul
Sawyer and Juliet kill 2 Hostiles and rescue DI Amy
Sawyer tells DI his name is LaFleur and he and his crew integrate into the Dharma Initiative after also informing Alpert what, that is who, they're waiting for
The Dharma submarine travels approximately every 2 weeks to and from the Island

- Daniel (not sure if it's 2005 or other aged Daniel) travels to the time they are building the Orchid. I'm thinking now this is definitely 2005 Daniel, but the exact date of this scene is unknown.

Somewhere in the 1970s, probably between '74 and '77 - a young Charlotte Lewis lives on Island; a crazy Daniel visits her and tells her to leave and never come back; Charlotte leaves with her mother, her father stays behind

1977 - Sawyer, Miles and Jin work for Dharma security
Juliet works as a Dharma mechanic and only reveals herself to be a doctor in order to deliver Amy's baby
A baby is born to Amy and Horace; no word on where it was conceived.
Kate, Hurley and Jack are flashed into this time from Flight 316 and are found by Jin
Motor Pool Kate, Chef Hurley and Workman Jack are part of the DI
Sayid in DI custody as a presumed Hostile; visited by young Ben
Young Ben springs Sayid; Sayid shoots him in the jungle and flees

1980s - Alpert's Hostiles and Ben purge the DI with poison gas. Possibly 1984/5 if you take Miles statement that Widmore has been looking for the Island for 20 years as accurate. This date does not agree with Horace's dream statement to Locke though. At this point Island is left with just Alpert's Others plus Ben plus possibly other DI that become Others or are left to die at the hands of polar bears. We do not know of any DI escaping the Island post-purge, but somehow Daniel knew about the purge as evidenced by Daniel and Charlotte's trip to the Tempest. I suspect Widmore knew about it too, but I don't know chicken and egg style if he told Daniel or Daniel told him.

November 18, 1988 - Rousseau's team crashes on Island 

- Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Charlotte and Daniel find wreckage of French ship

- Rousseau's team finds Jin

- Smokey kills Nadine and rips off Montand's arm; Frenchies minus Danielle go after Montand and Smokey

Between Nov. 18 and Alex's birth

-French team discovers Black Rock on Island

Late 1988/Early 1989 - Rousseau shoots LaCombe, Brennan and Robert
- Rousseau goes to radio tower and changes message

- Rousseau gives birth to Alex
- Ben takes Alex.  Alex becomes an Other.

Post-Gulf War maybe 1991/2 - Kelvin Inman arrives at the Swan
- Mikhail arrives on Island about then too.

1995 - Desmond meets Penny

1995/6 - Desmond meets with Charles Widmore to ask about marrying Penny
Desmond sees Charlie Pace performing on a street in London

1996 - Desmond meets Daniel in Oxford
Charles Widmore buys Black Rock ledger from the Hanso family

1997/8 - Daniel sends Teresa time-tripping, leaves for America, Widmore pays for Teresa's care

Late 1990s? - Nigerian drug plane crashes on the Island
- Ethan checks out plane crash and shoots a 2005 Locke
- 2005 Locke sees crash and is shot by Ethan

2001 - Desmond meets Jack at stadium in LA

2001-2004 - Desmond lives in Swan Hatch

- Juliet becomes an Other 

Sept. 22, 2004 - 815 crashes and Kelvin dies

Sept/Oct 2004 - The Others take members of the Tail Section to become Others including Cindy, Zack and Emma

Nov. 1, 2004 - Aaron born, delivered by Kate
- Time skipping LBs jump here from 1954 and see Swan lit up as Locke pounds on it and Aaron's birth

Nov. 2004 - Desmond meets Locke, Jack and Kate

Mid-Nov. 2004 - Desmond meets other 815ers

Dec. 31, 2004 - O6, Ben, Desmond and Frank leave the Island
LBs start skipping through time

2007 - Ajira 316 crashes on Hydra Island
Sun and Lapidus take outrigger to abandoned Dharmaville and meet Christian Shephard


2007 Crash date + 2/3 days - resurrected Locke found on Hydra Island; Ben in Ajira infirmary

2007 Crash date + at least 3 days - 2 Outriggers appear on beach; beach camp emptied; Zodiac gone

- People in Outrigger chase and shoot at LBs

And now for the Time Skips

Episodes 1 and 2
2005 LBers go to date of Nigerian plane crash  
Then to post-Swan implosion time
Then to somewhere between 2001-2004 when Desmond is in Swan Hatch

Episode 3
Then to 1954

Episode 4
Then to Nov. 1, 2004 where they come across a lit up Swan Hatch and Aaron's birth
Then to some future date where the beach camp exists, but has been raided by people in two outrigger canoes and the Zodiac is missing
Then to the day Rousseau's people crash on the Island

Episode 5

Opens on November 18, 1988

Jumps ahead about 2 months

Multiple unknown jumps

Locke puts Donkey Wheel back on its axis and turns it again

Episodes 5, 7, 8

The flash when Locke falls down the well takes them to 4-toed statue days
Locke turning the wheel takes the remaining LBs to 1974

Episode 9
Sayid is in 1977; Sun, Ben, Locke, Lapidus in 2007

Episode 10 - 1977

Does Life On Island Keep You Alive Off?


I heard this theory from a listener on Lost Unlocked. He theorized that the Island exists in the future and for that reason you can't die in the past off Island. And this explains why Michael, Jack and possibly Widmore can't die off Island because of the paradox it would create given that they were already alive in the future on Island.

I would guess at some point your timelines would cross and you could die off Island which makes Widmore's case particularly interesting. And it also raises the question about the Freighter's timeline with Michael on it. Is it now back on Island time thus he can die? It's an interesting theory, but I think all in all, it's not so much an avoidance of paradox but the Island's need of you that protects you.

Does Time Move Faster On the Island
When Its Inhabitants Go Up?

On my road to the Dark Tower I've detoured once again to Derry, Maine where Stephen King's novels It and now Insomnia take place. Characters in Insomnia are moving between levels of the Dark Tower, a building that somehow controls time and worlds and how time moves in worlds. When these humans move up the levels of the Tower allowing them to perceive more than is normally available to our five senses time begins to move at a significantly faster rate.

So I wonder if what's going on in terms of Island time and its failure to quite add up is movement by the Island or those on it through levels of time resulting in the rate at which time passes failing to be constant. I especially wonder this with Daniel's experiment. The rocket literally went up (and so do characters in Insomnia at least once) and then had a different time from Daniel's watch. Ben went somewhere when he turned the wheel and 10 months passed. Did he go up?

We Have To Go Back . . .



The more I think about it, the more I think it's not the case that the O6 have to go back to the Island, but that they have to go back to the Island by going back in time. The reason for going back so far has been held out as "bad things" happened when they left and therefore they have to go back. And the thing I can't figure out if why going back after the bad things have happened helps.

The other thing that makes me think that going back in time is necessary is Ben's idea that he can go and they need Locke's body. Ben tells Locke that a person who moves the Island can't return. So does Ben think he can take the O6 and dead Locke back in time before he turned the donkey wheel and beat the universe at its own game? Can you go back to that place in 4-dimensional space-time before you turned the wheel?

And what point in space-time would you go back to? I guess they are looking at a point after 815 crashed if you need the O6, but does that mean you need Desmond too? And what about the kids -- Aaron, Ji Yeon, and Walt? Can you take a 3-year-old Aaron back to when he was 2 months old? A born Ji Yeon to when she was in utero or even earlier? Or do Aaron and Ji Yeon get a pass which might explain Kate needing to go back, but not taking Aaron.

Talk about your alternate universes and time lines! But I'm willing to buy that sort of thing at least in a final season. I just still can't figure out why go back after the cat's been let out of the bag, and how Ben's involvement would work.

Questions From The Economist