Lost Experience
Encyclopedia
The Lost Experience was an alternate reality game
that was part of the American
television drama Lost
. The game was developed by ABC in the United States, Channel 4 in the UK, and Channel 7 in Australia. It was written by Jordan Rosenberg
and created by the agency Hi-ReS!. The experience played out during Lost's second season in the United Kingdom and during the summer break in the United States until the launch of season 3. The Lost Experience, which was announced by the United Kingdom's
Channel 4
, Australia's
Seven Network
and the United States
' ABC on April 24, 2006 Damon Lindelof
has verified the canonical
status of The Lost Experience and the information provided therein.
ABC Entertainment's
senior vice president of marketing, Mike Benson, described the game as a hybrid between content and marketing. This type of marketing was previously used by ABC for Losts premiere in 2004. ABC created a website for the fictional Oceanic Airlines
, the airline of the plane that crashed in the show's pilot episode.
]
Several different websites for fictional organizations or individuals mentioned on the show or in part of the Lost Experience were introduced. The websites, particularly the Hanso Foundation website, contain background information into the mythology of Lost
. The character Rachel Blake (Jamie Silberhartz
), also known as Persephone, is introduced to guide players through the game. Most clues on the Hanso Foundation website are revealed by clicking on faintly marked anomalies in the web page design or by entering specific codes into webpages. Some require passwords found elsewhere, such as in the voicemail service. The clue revelations are designed as minigame
s, though with little challenge as they are completely linear
. A notable exception is the coded messages on persephone.thehansofoundation.org involving simple encryption schemes such as ROT13
and base64
.
Also in May, Hyperion
published the novel Bad Twin, a book written by Laurence Shames and credited to fictional author Gary Troup, who was on the plane that crashed on Lost. Bad Twin is a mystery novel that contains references to the show and mentions the Hanso Foundation occasionally. On May 9, various newspapers ran quarter-page ads from the Hanso Foundation which condemned the novel for giving misinformation about the Hanso Foundation. Of note is the fact that "Gary Troup" is in fact an anagram of the word "purgatory" itself, indicating that the book may itself be a red herring as the purgatory theory has been refuted.
On June 19, Rachel Blake's blog is revealed in the source code of the Hanso foundation site, which comes to play a major part of the second phase of the game. Rogue investigator Blake posts videos of her traveling around the world (mostly Europe
) to uncover the secret agenda of the Hanso foundation.
hansoexposed.com is launched through a stunt at Comic-Con
on July 22, 2006, marking the start of the Lost Experience phase three. The website (which was identified earlier as sharing IP address
with thehansofoundation.org) features open-registration accounts to a video sequence editor. By entering alphanumeric codes new video segments can be added. New codes are expected to be released regularly — entering an invalid code yields a statement that the code in question does not work at this particular time.
In late August 2006, Apollo chocolate bars (the Apollo bar is a part of the Lost mythology and has been featured onscreen) began distribution through Forbidden Planet
stores in the UK, and visits by an Apollo truck in the US. On August 24 the web site http://www.whereisalvar.com was launched. Site users may upload pictures of themselves and Apollo chocolate bars they have been issued. The uploaded pictures now form the word "unite". A certain number of Apollo bars are designated "golden oracle", and contain special codes that can also be submitted to the site. A message from Rachel Blake promises that further instructions will be given "once enough of the world is watching". Now the site has told that D.J. Dan will tell the full truth and finally shut down the whole thing on his radio show on September 24 at 8pm PST.
Fans of Lost have been looking over the clues and discussing them on internet forum
s, and several websites have been set up which give detailed information on all parts of the game. Since the focus has been on the World Wide Web (as opposed to broadcast), the intentionally low-fi nature of some Lost Experience material and its use of consumer-oriented distribution channels such as Blogger
, Flickr
, and YouTube
, it has been particularly difficult separating fan-made material from the official canon.
and the island, without spoiling the plot of Lost. In fact, within the alternate reality of the game itself, "Lost" is considered to be a fictional TV show based on real events and organizations.
Now, since the site's closing, most new clues are related to Rachel Blake's website.
As of 10 May 2006, the clock on the Hanso Foundation's site occasionally changes to display "OB:EY" for one minute. The changes are marked by an audible blip of static. The minutes of the day at which these changes occur correspond to the Lost numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), though not every occurrence of these times results in the link. When the clock does change, it becomes a clickable link to the subliminal website.
Later a Sprite commercial appeared on the air that promoted the sublymonal website, which had changed to a completely Sprite-based subliminal ad site. One commercial showed a person blind folded with a lemon and lime slice, getting small drops of Sprite in his mouth and eye. A second commercial showed the clashing of a green sumo wrestler, and a yellow sumo wrestler into a young gentleman. These commercials both contained hidden passwords that flashed briefly onscreen. The passwords, bentley, scan, listen, tongue, chill, belly, spray, pulse, embedded, and duh could be entered into the text box on the sublymonal website for hidden videos and websites.
Exploration of this site led players to a Jeep
commercial hosted on YouTube, which contained game clues at the end. On May 26 access to the directories of /usr/hmcintyr/ and /usr/pthompso/ was granted, created to appear as personal mail folders for Hugh McIntyre and Peter Thompson. Their email folders contain scans of DaimlerChrysler
Jeep fleet contracts for the Hanso Foundation, a link to a Jeep commercial and photos of newspaper ads.
Also the mail found in the directory http://www.letyourcompassguideyou.com/usr/pthompso/mail/INBOX includes a binary sequence, which can be converted into the words "the mouth piece". Likewise, the words "the mouth piece" are found in the image in the http://www.letyourcompassguideyou.com/usr/trash/139191991471518711419.jpg directory.
The domain letyourcompassguideyou.com is registered to DaimlerChrysler, and the slogan "Let Your Compass Guide You" is used on the website for the 2007 Jeep Compass.
When moving the cursor to one of the "hotspots", one of the map compass points showed an odd text code in the same font as the glyphs in part 3 of the Lost experience. As of yet though, the code seems to be invalid.
As of the 20th of September the site had been removed with a picture of a postcard in its place and a message stating that the site had been removed. By clicking the word "removed" it sends one to a youtube video ending with a url.
Additionally, highlighting the area below this will show the numbers "13/9/19/19/9/14/7/15/18/7/1/14/19", which translate to the words "missing organs". Upon clicking this, one will be directed to an index of "/usr", with a security notice. Here, from which it is possible to click on "ahanso/" to view a statement from Alvar Hanso, in addition to the previous McIntyre and Thompson folders.
used in the game. Lost characters Hurley and Libby were both inmates in an asylum.
" that points viewers to the Retrievers of Truth website. The website features Dr. Vincent "Wally" Bolé, a "pioneer in the field of canine
parapsychology
and neuroveterinary medicine". Ostensibly a site about the psychic abilities of the yellow labrador retriever
, solving a puzzle takes you to a bulletin board populated by fictional Verizon employees (the users all have Verizon-related puns in their names — iobiSeeingyou, DSLerator, etc.), discussing the political machinations of the Hanso foundation within Verizon as a company. One of the posts also refers to a Verizon advertisement, in which there are clues for the Hanso foundation site. Typing "Steinbeck" in the text box you would normally put your email address in to unlocks a hidden fictional forum.
novelization
set within the universe of the television series Lost and the related Lost Experience. ABC has also released several videos in a nine part interview of Gary Troup, played by Laird Granger, on a fictional show called "Book Talk". The videos were released on the Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble
web sites on their respective Bad Twin pages. Michael Benson, the senior vice president of marketing at ABC, says that Troup was one of the initial crash victims, played by Frank Torres, of Oceanic Flight 815, being sucked into the plane's turbine in the pilot episode.
Gary Troup lived in New York
and was in love with Cindy Chandler, a flight attendant on Oceanic Airlines. His name is an anagram
of "purgatory
;" however, the show producers have stated on more than one occasion that the survivors are not in purgatory.
to Florida
to Cuba
to Australia
. He is aided in his quest by Manny Weisman, Artisan's old college classics
professor, with whom Artisan shares a dog named Argos
, named after Odysseus
's faithful dog. Manny provides historical context to the events in which Artisan finds himself, and often provides philosophical commentary on the actions of the various members of the Widmore family.
Bad Twin exists both as a novel in the real world, and as a metanovel
-in-progress within the world of Lost. The apparent manuscript of Bad Twin was discovered by the characters of Lost
in Season 2 and is read by Sawyer in the episode "Two for the Road
". While the novel's plot has no direct link to the television show, Bad Twin contains many references to it. In the clues about Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk's authenticity there is a statement about dealing with Gary Troup. On May 9, 2006, the fictitious corporation The Hanso Foundation ran a quarter-page ad in several major newspapers, including The Washington Post
(on the 10th), The Philadelphia Inquirer
, and the Chicago Tribune
. The ad repudiates Bad Twin for its "attacks" and "misinformation" about the Hanso Foundation. Additionally, the Hanso Foundation website contained a press release that was equally critical of Bad Twin. While the novel Bad Twin never makes explicit reference to the events of the show, there are a number of references in the novel to things mentioned in Lost, such as Widmore Industries, the Hanso Foundation, Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack, Paik Heavy Industry, Cindy Chandler, and the numbers.
titled The Valenzetti Equation about an equation derived by an also-fictional mathematician of that name. Amazon's "exclusive note" on their Bad Twin page mentions that The Valenzetti Equation is Troup's first book. The "Lost Experience" has revealed that the objective of the DHARMA Initiative is to alter any of the six factors of the Valenzetti Equation, revealed to have a huge impact on the date the human race will destroy itself, whether by global warming, chemical warfare, overpopulation or many other possible methods. These factors are each associated with a number in the Valenzetti Equation, which are the numbers frequently mentioned in the show: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.
Alternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
that was part of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television drama Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. The game was developed by ABC in the United States, Channel 4 in the UK, and Channel 7 in Australia. It was written by Jordan Rosenberg
Jordan Rosenberg
Jordan Rosenberg is an American television writer.After graduating from the University of Michigan earning joint degrees from the university's Film and Dramatic Writing programs, Rosenberg was awarded Michigan's Hopwood Award in Screenwriting...
and created by the agency Hi-ReS!. The experience played out during Lost
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Australia's
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
' ABC on April 24, 2006 Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
has verified the canonical
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
status of The Lost Experience and the information provided therein.
ABC Entertainment's
ABC Entertainment
ABC Entertainment is a network production company owned by ABC that was created in 1982.The company was previously known as ABC Television Network Productions, ABC Circle Films, and ABC Productions...
senior vice president of marketing, Mike Benson, described the game as a hybrid between content and marketing. This type of marketing was previously used by ABC for Losts premiere in 2004. ABC created a website for the fictional Oceanic Airlines
Oceanic Airlines
Oceanic Airlines and less frequently Oceanic Airways are fictional airlines used in several films and television programs.The most famous use of this brand is in the TV show Lost, where Oceanic Airlines is featured branded with a highly-stylized logo depicting an Aboriginal dot painting that...
, the airline of the plane that crashed in the show's pilot episode.
Premise
The game is divided into five phases. The first began on May 2, 2006 in the United Kingdom, May 3, 2006 in the United States and Australia, with a television commercial that aired during an episode of Lost for the fictional Hanso Foundation, a corporation mentioned on the television show. The advertisement listed a telephone number which brought up fictional voice mail lines for employees at the Hanso Foundation Some of these messages provided clues to be used in the Hanso Foundation's website. Commercials for the Hanso Foundation in subsequent weeks directed players to other in-game websites, some of which are tied to specific sponsors, as detailed below.Several different websites for fictional organizations or individuals mentioned on the show or in part of the Lost Experience were introduced. The websites, particularly the Hanso Foundation website, contain background information into the mythology of Lost
Mythology of Lost
The television show Lost includes a number of mysterious elements that have been ascribed to science fiction or supernatural phenomena, usually concerning coincidences, synchronicity, déjà vu, temporal and spatial anomalies, paradoxes, and other puzzling phenomena...
. The character Rachel Blake (Jamie Silberhartz
Jamie Silberhartz
Jamie Silberhartz is an actress noted for having appeared as Rachel Blake in The Lost Experience, an internet-based alternate-reality-game related to the ABC television show, Lost....
), also known as Persephone, is introduced to guide players through the game. Most clues on the Hanso Foundation website are revealed by clicking on faintly marked anomalies in the web page design or by entering specific codes into webpages. Some require passwords found elsewhere, such as in the voicemail service. The clue revelations are designed as minigame
Minigame
A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...
s, though with little challenge as they are completely linear
Linearity (computer and video games)
A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each player sees only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played in a different order. A video game with linear gameplay will confront a player...
. A notable exception is the coded messages on persephone.thehansofoundation.org involving simple encryption schemes such as ROT13
ROT13
ROT13 is a simple substitution cipher used in online forums as a means of hiding spoilers, punchlines, puzzle solutions, and offensive materials from the casual glance. ROT13 has been described as the "Usenet equivalent of a magazine printing the answer to a quiz upside down"...
and base64
Base64
Base64 is a group of similar encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation...
.
Also in May, Hyperion
Hyperion (publisher)
Hyperion Books is a general-interest book publishing part of the Disney-ABC Television Group, a division of The Walt Disney Company, established in 1991. Hyperion publishes general-interest fiction and non-fiction books for adults under the following imprints: ABC Daytime Press, ESPN Books,...
published the novel Bad Twin, a book written by Laurence Shames and credited to fictional author Gary Troup, who was on the plane that crashed on Lost. Bad Twin is a mystery novel that contains references to the show and mentions the Hanso Foundation occasionally. On May 9, various newspapers ran quarter-page ads from the Hanso Foundation which condemned the novel for giving misinformation about the Hanso Foundation. Of note is the fact that "Gary Troup" is in fact an anagram of the word "purgatory" itself, indicating that the book may itself be a red herring as the purgatory theory has been refuted.
On June 19, Rachel Blake's blog is revealed in the source code of the Hanso foundation site, which comes to play a major part of the second phase of the game. Rogue investigator Blake posts videos of her traveling around the world (mostly Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
) to uncover the secret agenda of the Hanso foundation.
hansoexposed.com is launched through a stunt at Comic-Con
Comic-Con
Comic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
on July 22, 2006, marking the start of the Lost Experience phase three. The website (which was identified earlier as sharing IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
with thehansofoundation.org) features open-registration accounts to a video sequence editor. By entering alphanumeric codes new video segments can be added. New codes are expected to be released regularly — entering an invalid code yields a statement that the code in question does not work at this particular time.
In late August 2006, Apollo chocolate bars (the Apollo bar is a part of the Lost mythology and has been featured onscreen) began distribution through Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet (bookstore)
Forbidden Planet is the trading name of two separate science fiction, fantasy and horror bookshop chains across the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States of America, after the feature film of the same name....
stores in the UK, and visits by an Apollo truck in the US. On August 24 the web site http://www.whereisalvar.com was launched. Site users may upload pictures of themselves and Apollo chocolate bars they have been issued. The uploaded pictures now form the word "unite". A certain number of Apollo bars are designated "golden oracle", and contain special codes that can also be submitted to the site. A message from Rachel Blake promises that further instructions will be given "once enough of the world is watching". Now the site has told that D.J. Dan will tell the full truth and finally shut down the whole thing on his radio show on September 24 at 8pm PST.
Fans of Lost have been looking over the clues and discussing them on internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s, and several websites have been set up which give detailed information on all parts of the game. Since the focus has been on the World Wide Web (as opposed to broadcast), the intentionally low-fi nature of some Lost Experience material and its use of consumer-oriented distribution channels such as Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
, and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, it has been particularly difficult separating fan-made material from the official canon.
The Hanso Foundation
Until June 20, 2006, when the Hanso Foundation website closed, the Lost Experience centered mainly around the Hanso Foundation website, with other tie-in websites being linked from hidden clues in the main site. The Hanso Foundation website includes many easter eggs, and reveals mysteries behind the Hanso Foundation, its employees, the Dharma InitiativeDHARMA Initiative
The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA , was a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science...
and the island, without spoiling the plot of Lost. In fact, within the alternate reality of the game itself, "Lost" is considered to be a fictional TV show based on real events and organizations.
Now, since the site's closing, most new clues are related to Rachel Blake's website.
Viral marketing sites
In addition to the specially created sites mentioned below, numerous videos and other bits of information have been intermixed with sponsors' official web sites. For instance, one Rachel Blake video was buried in a Jeep Compass product presentation page.Sprite
The Hanso Foundation commercial shown during the Lost episode on May 10, 2006 contained the on-screen text "Paid for by Sprite" and directed viewers to http://sublymonal.com/. The website itself contains references to Sprite. Other clues in the game have prominently contained the word "obey" (part of Sprite's slogan, "obey your thirst").As of 10 May 2006, the clock on the Hanso Foundation's site occasionally changes to display "OB:EY" for one minute. The changes are marked by an audible blip of static. The minutes of the day at which these changes occur correspond to the Lost numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42), though not every occurrence of these times results in the link. When the clock does change, it becomes a clickable link to the subliminal website.
Later a Sprite commercial appeared on the air that promoted the sublymonal website, which had changed to a completely Sprite-based subliminal ad site. One commercial showed a person blind folded with a lemon and lime slice, getting small drops of Sprite in his mouth and eye. A second commercial showed the clashing of a green sumo wrestler, and a yellow sumo wrestler into a young gentleman. These commercials both contained hidden passwords that flashed briefly onscreen. The passwords, bentley, scan, listen, tongue, chill, belly, spray, pulse, embedded, and duh could be entered into the text box on the sublymonal website for hidden videos and websites.
Jeep
The Hanso commercial shown during the episode on May 17, 2006 contained a Jeep copyright message and directed players to the website www.letyourcompassguideyou.com. Users had to spin their mouse cursor around a compass and click on "108". A figure could be seen in the compass, which looked a lot like the woman in the opening graphic on the Hanso website. A box then appeared that asked the user if they were "one of the good ones". Typing "Y" took users to a page that looked like a directory listing of the site. Typing "N" redirected users to the Hanso Foundation site. The question later changed and asked if the users did believe or not.Exploration of this site led players to a Jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
commercial hosted on YouTube, which contained game clues at the end. On May 26 access to the directories of /usr/hmcintyr/ and /usr/pthompso/ was granted, created to appear as personal mail folders for Hugh McIntyre and Peter Thompson. Their email folders contain scans of DaimlerChrysler
DaimlerChrysler
Daimler AG is a German car corporation. By unit sales, it is the thirteenth-largest car manufacturer and second-largest truck manufacturer in the world. In addition to automobiles, Daimler manufactures buses and provides financial services through its Daimler Financial Services arm...
Jeep fleet contracts for the Hanso Foundation, a link to a Jeep commercial and photos of newspaper ads.
Also the mail found in the directory http://www.letyourcompassguideyou.com/usr/pthompso/mail/INBOX includes a binary sequence, which can be converted into the words "the mouth piece". Likewise, the words "the mouth piece" are found in the image in the http://www.letyourcompassguideyou.com/usr/trash/139191991471518711419.jpg directory.
The domain letyourcompassguideyou.com is registered to DaimlerChrysler, and the slogan "Let Your Compass Guide You" is used on the website for the 2007 Jeep Compass.
When moving the cursor to one of the "hotspots", one of the map compass points showed an odd text code in the same font as the glyphs in part 3 of the Lost experience. As of yet though, the code seems to be invalid.
As of the 20th of September the site had been removed with a picture of a postcard in its place and a message stating that the site had been removed. By clicking the word "removed" it sends one to a youtube video ending with a url.
Additionally, highlighting the area below this will show the numbers "13/9/19/19/9/14/7/15/18/7/1/14/19", which translate to the words "missing organs". Upon clicking this, one will be directed to an index of "/usr", with a security notice. Here, from which it is possible to click on "ahanso/" to view a statement from Alvar Hanso, in addition to the previous McIntyre and Thompson folders.
Monster.com
During the May 24 episode of Lost, The Hanso Foundation advert was shown again, but with a disclaimer indicating that it was "paid for by Monster.com." The advert also mentioned the Hanso Foundation Careers website, a mock job search engine with five jobs listed (as of 25 May 2006). The site contains a link to the Monster.com website. There are several grayed letters in the job descriptions: n, s, l, u, t, m, i, e, m, a, y, a. These letters can be rearranged to form "inmate asylum", a passphrasePassphrase
A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but is generally longer for added security. Passphrases are often used to control both access to, and operation of, cryptographic programs...
used in the game. Lost characters Hurley and Libby were both inmates in an asylum.
Verizon
On June 6, an advertisement aired during "Boston LegalBoston Legal
Boston Legal is an American legal dramedy created by David E. Kelley, which was produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for the ABC...
" that points viewers to the Retrievers of Truth website. The website features Dr. Vincent "Wally" Bolé, a "pioneer in the field of canine
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
parapsychology
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
and neuroveterinary medicine". Ostensibly a site about the psychic abilities of the yellow labrador retriever
Labrador Retriever
The Labrador Retriever is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. A breed characteristic is webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets. The Labrador is the most popular breed of dog by registered ownership in Canada, the United...
, solving a puzzle takes you to a bulletin board populated by fictional Verizon employees (the users all have Verizon-related puns in their names — iobiSeeingyou, DSLerator, etc.), discussing the political machinations of the Hanso foundation within Verizon as a company. One of the posts also refers to a Verizon advertisement, in which there are clues for the Hanso foundation site. Typing "Steinbeck" in the text box you would normally put your email address in to unlocks a hidden fictional forum.
Gary Troup
Gary Troup is the fictitious author of Bad Twin, a tie-inTie-in
A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...
novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
set within the universe of the television series Lost and the related Lost Experience. ABC has also released several videos in a nine part interview of Gary Troup, played by Laird Granger, on a fictional show called "Book Talk". The videos were released on the Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
web sites on their respective Bad Twin pages. Michael Benson, the senior vice president of marketing at ABC, says that Troup was one of the initial crash victims, played by Frank Torres, of Oceanic Flight 815, being sucked into the plane's turbine in the pilot episode.
Gary Troup lived in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and was in love with Cindy Chandler, a flight attendant on Oceanic Airlines. His name is an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of "purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
;" however, the show producers have stated on more than one occasion that the survivors are not in purgatory.
Bad Twin
On June 18, 2006, Daily Variety revealed that Bad Twin was ghost authored by novelist Laurence Shames. The novel is the story of a down-and-out private detective, Paul Artisan, who is hired to find Zander Widmore, the degenerate twin of Cliff Widmore, a wealthy and successful heir. As do many such stories, the case leads deeper and deeper into a sinister world of betrayal and confusion as Artisan follows on Zander's heels all over the world, from ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. He is aided in his quest by Manny Weisman, Artisan's old college classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
professor, with whom Artisan shares a dog named Argos
Argos (dog)
In Homer's the Odyssey, Argos is Odysseus' faithful dog. After twenty years struggling to get home to Ithaca, Odysseus finally arrives at his homeland. In his absence, reckless suitors have taken over his house in hopes of marrying his wife Penelope...
, named after Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
's faithful dog. Manny provides historical context to the events in which Artisan finds himself, and often provides philosophical commentary on the actions of the various members of the Widmore family.
Story within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
-in-progress within the world of Lost. The apparent manuscript of Bad Twin was discovered by the characters of Lost
Characters of Lost
The characters from the American drama/adventure television series Lost were created by Damon Lindelof and J. J. Abrams. The series follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet crashes somewhere in the South Pacific...
in Season 2 and is read by Sawyer in the episode "Two for the Road
Two for the Road (Lost)
"Two for the Road" is the 20th episode of the second season of the American drama television series Lost, and the show's 45th episode overall. The episode was written by supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff and producer Christina M. Kim, and directed by Paul Edwards. It first aired in the United...
". While the novel's plot has no direct link to the television show, Bad Twin contains many references to it. In the clues about Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk's authenticity there is a statement about dealing with Gary Troup. On May 9, 2006, the fictitious corporation The Hanso Foundation ran a quarter-page ad in several major newspapers, including The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
(on the 10th), The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. The ad repudiates Bad Twin for its "attacks" and "misinformation" about the Hanso Foundation. Additionally, the Hanso Foundation website contained a press release that was equally critical of Bad Twin. While the novel Bad Twin never makes explicit reference to the events of the show, there are a number of references in the novel to things mentioned in Lost, such as Widmore Industries, the Hanso Foundation, Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack, Paik Heavy Industry, Cindy Chandler, and the numbers.
The Valenzetti Equation
As part of his fictional background, Troup is the author of an out-of-print bookOut-of-print book
An out-of-print book is a book that is no longer being published. Out-of-print books are often rare, and may be difficult to acquire.A publisher will usually create a print run of a fixed number of copies of a new book. These books can be ordered in bulk by booksellers, and when all the...
titled The Valenzetti Equation about an equation derived by an also-fictional mathematician of that name. Amazon's "exclusive note" on their Bad Twin page mentions that The Valenzetti Equation is Troup's first book. The "Lost Experience" has revealed that the objective of the DHARMA Initiative is to alter any of the six factors of the Valenzetti Equation, revealed to have a huge impact on the date the human race will destroy itself, whether by global warming, chemical warfare, overpopulation or many other possible methods. These factors are each associated with a number in the Valenzetti Equation, which are the numbers frequently mentioned in the show: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.
External links
- ABC Press Release
- The Hanso Foundation official website
- Inside the Experience, Speaker - The official ABC Lost Experience blog
- The Lost Ninja - Australian Channel 7's official network blogger for The Lost Experience
- The Other Girl - British Channel 4's official network blogger for The Lost Experience
- TLE on hi-res.net - A summary of the Lost Experience on the Hi-ReS! site
- Mathematical Forecasting Initiative
Official LOST Experience tie-in sites
- Gary Troup fictional author of the tie-in novel Bad Twin.
- DJ DAN Linked from the page source of the Hanso Foundation site.
- Hanso Careers advertised on a Hanso Foundation commercial during the season finale.
- So Their Tomorrow Never Comes... Rachel Blake's Blog, found by typing in evident agenda in the "extra info" box on her vacation blog.
- Hanso Exposed
- Where is Alvar?
Official LOST Experience tie-in movies
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #1 Linked from Video Detective page of Bad Twin
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #2 Linked from Borders page of Bad Twin
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #3 Linked from Amazon page of Bad Twin
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #4 Also linked from Amazon page of Bad Twin
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #5 Linked from Powells page of Bad Twin
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #6 Linked from Gary Troup official website
- Jeep tie-in movie Linked from the 'Let Your Compass Guide You' site
- DJDan tie-in movie On broadbandstories.com. (Third row, fourth column)
- Rachel Blake Copenhagen tie-in movie #1 Originally linked from Monster.com profile, found on Rachel Blake's blog
- Mysterious Apology to DJ Dan Released on YouTube
- Rachel Blake Copenhagen tie-in movie #2 Copied from video on www.broadbandstories.com
- Rachel Blake Copenhagen tie-in movie #3 Found on sublymonal.com, with password from Rachel Blake's blog
- Gary Troup tie-in movie #7 Linked from Mandrake Wig's Myspace profile
- Rachel Blake Iceland tie-in movie #1 Linked from Rachel Blake's blog
- Rachel Blake Italy tie-in movie #1 Linked from www.richerdeeperbroader.com. (Login- rblake; Password- allveggie)
- Rachel Blake Paris tie-in movie #1 On sublymonal.com. (Type 'Listen,' click Talib Kweli's right eye. Login- rblake; Password- milkcartonman)
- Thomas Mittlewerk tie-in movie #1 Linked from DJDan site
- Thomas Mittlewerk tie-in movie #2 Also linked from DJDan site
- Thomas Mittlewerk tie-in movie #3 On broadbandstories.com. (First row, fourth column)
- Rachel Blake week 05, post 1 tie-in movie Linked from Jeep.com. (Click 'Crush Zones, 'Watch Demo')
- Rachel Blake week 05, post 2 tie-in movie Also linked from DJDan site
- Rachel Blake week 05, post 3 tie-in movie Linked from Richerdeeperbroader.com
- "The Chocolate Factory" Video glyph that reveals a code in sign language. Hosted by user 'CHARLABEELK,' an anagram for Rachel Blake.
- Rachel Blake Sri Lanka tie-in movie Video compiled from 70 scattered clips
- "!! PLEASE HELP !!" Lost Experience incidence, sponsored by Jeep
- Rachel Blake Narvik tie-in movie Originally posted on abc.com
Recordings
- Recording of a call to the UK phone number (in MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format) - Recordings of calls to the US phone number
- Recordings of calls to the Australian phone number (in Zip archiveZIP (file format)Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...
) - Recording of meeting between Hanso Foundation executives Username: rblake password: organharvest