If I am reading right, the whispers are pretty much being described as a prelude to the "others" coming. A kind of theme song to let us know they are there. With no real relevance beyond that ? Boy, I feel for those who were trying to listen to the voices and trying to decipher them over the years.

The whispers are one mystery I'd really like explained. They were such a big deal. The first couple of seasons, Walt talking backwards and saying "The numbers are bad" with the whispers all around him. And last season, with flashback Ben and Ethan taking Alex from Danielle, Ben told her "If you hear whispers...you run." [paraphrasing] The whispers were always such a dramatic tool. I'd hate for them to turn out to be only that.

The whispers are a sign that MiB is coming/around. Think of the scene with Sayid in the past episode - no others around, just MiB. You must run when MiB is around.

The whispers are a sign that MiB is coming/around. Think of the scene with Sayid in the past episode - no others around, just MiB. You must run when MiB is around.But those were Smokey sounds, not whispers.


I, too, hope we get some explanation for the whispers. Having it be, "Oh, that was the Others whispering loudly while creeping around the jungle!" just isn't going to cut it for me...

"The Others were whispering while watching" explanation was, indeed, the original idea.

I have a dollar, twenty seven sez this mystery gets filed under "Unexplained" in the end.

It was supposed to be creepy, is my take. Not a fullblown mystery.

It's a fake-out. They've used the actual Others whispering and then coming out of the bushes to show us it was them. The Whispers make plans, send apparitions, have a problem, wonder if certain Losties might could help them but if they reveal themselves it will ruin everything, are in the hatch watching and commenting while Benry is being tortured (they don't like him), spooked Ana into shooting Shannon and they knew it was gonna happen so they gathered there etc. etc. This isn't the Others, it's The Whispers...They're different...

I'll be a little bugged if the Whispers never get addressed in the show. It clearly isn't just Others whispering as they approach.

"The Others were whispering while watching" explanation was, indeed, the original idea.

I have a dollar, twenty seven sez this mystery gets filed under "Unexplained" in the end.

It was supposed to be creepy, is my take. Not a fullblown mystery.

After 'Lighthouse' I thought that the Whispers were perhaps Jacob or Others gathered round the Lighthouse 'mirror', watching their subject. I know the mirror showed Jack's childhood home, but I'm sure it could have shown him in the jungle on the island too, for example...

I'd like some closure on the Whisperers. If they weren't ever going to clear that up, I don't think we'd have Ben telling Rousseau, when you hear them, run. That was mystifying an already mysterious element on the show even more, not less.

The next person to claim the Whispers are related to MIB needs to cite a single instance where the two correlate.

We hear Whispers when Cindy disappears ("The Other 48 Days"). We later learn she has been taken by the Others.

We hear Whispers just before the Others attack Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley in "Live Together, Die Alone".

We hear Whispers before Harper appears ("The Other Woman").

The whispers came when Christian came to Sun and Lapidus in the Dharma village just before he appeared. By that time, I'm assuming all the Others were at the temple.

It's a fake-out. They've used the actual Others whispering and then coming out of the bushes to show us it was them. The Whispers make plans, send apparitions, have a problem, wonder if certain Losties might could help them but if they reveal themselves it will ruin everything, are in the hatch watching and commenting while Benry is being tortured (they don't like him), spooked Ana into shooting Shannon and they knew it was gonna happen so they gathered there etc. etc. This isn't the Others, it's The Whispers...They're different...

I agree with UAC here that the Whispers are quite specificly hiding from the Losties, watching them. I once believed the Whispers were the Others... Rousseau said they were, and one could interpret Ben's caveat to young Danielle as "the Whispers are the Others..so if you want your baby to live, stay away from us."

But it has become clearer that the Others aren't what they appeared to be. I would even say they lack the communication skills lol.

I think piecar has it right. the Whispers will not be explained. That will be one they will leave to us. Since even though they introduced them, they have no room to answer them now.
I don/t think TPTB consider it a mystery that is relevent.

In the Whispers thread, someone asked Javi if they would be addressed and his response was, "I hope so." This was back in 2005.

Also:

http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=8197

Raggs (writer):
Hi there,

You should definitely pay attention to the whispers. Not because they will provide you with a specific answer to your question, but rather because they play a part in a much larger mystery (that will be answered, I promise) of the island and ALL of it's..."featrues."

Was that too vague to help you? Sorry if it was...

THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!!!

Matt

Personally, I think it will be answered.

I thought it was pretty much settled that the first time the whispers appeared in the show was totally not planned. It was a set stagehand whispering to a colleague during a shot early on in the series, and miraculously this shot with his whispering made it past post-production and on to the final version of the episode that we saw on TV. Remember the first whispers:

"I really don't get this show, Don.... Where the hell are we gonna work in Hawaii after this thing doesn't get renewed?....I'm moving back to LA.....Did he say "print it"? Thank God. These freaking insects are killing me...."
Anyway, when Damon and Carlton first noticed the whispers, while watching the episode as it was broadcast on TV, they liked the mysteriousness of them (but not the attitude of the original whisperer himself -- he got canned.) So they then decided to sporadically have whispering in various scenes along the way. The explanation for the whispering, they figured, they could come up with later.

My guess is the whispering will be explained as coming from Others in the tunnels that criss-cross the island. But I could be as way-off wrong as the stagehand who thought Lost would not last very long. (Word has it he is now back in LA, working as an insect exterminator. Who says there are no happy endings? :))

I think piecar has it right. the Whispers will not be explained. That will be one they will leave to us. Since even though they introduced them, they have no room to answer them now.
I don/t think TPTB consider it a mystery that is relevent.

Ultimately, they have to give us some answer as to what the island IS, and with that will come an "answer" to the whispers, even if they don't address it explicitly.

The Island has always been discussed as a character in the show, and if the only explanation we get is, "It's magical... and that answers all questions!" I will be disappointed.

I thought it was pretty much settled that the first time the whispers appeared in the show was totally not planned. It was a set stagehand whispering to a colleague during a shot early on in the series, and miraculously this shot with his whispering made it past post-production and on to the final version of the episode that we saw on TV. Remember the first whispers:

Anyway, when Damon and Carlton first noticed the whispers, while watching the episode as it was broadcast on TV, they liked the mysteriousness of them (but not the attitude of the original whisperer himself -- he got canned.) So they then decided to sporadically have whispering in various scenes along the way. The explanation for the whispering, they figured, they could come up with later.

Where'd you get that from?

The first time we hear the Whispers is in "Solitary". Shortly after Rousseau specifically mentions them to Sayid.

I never heard that bit about accidental whispers heard by Damon and Carlton. That sounds sketchy to me.

I think that's a joke.

If you watch the series thinking of the whispers as the others whispering, it provides a reasonable explanation for 90% of their occurences.

I think if it is the Others then it is some Others, not all Others. Juliet was an Other. Did she whisper? Did Ben? Did Richard? I'm not satisfied to hear it's the Others, when clearly there is more going on. How are they whispering? With their mouths, their minds, what?

We most recently heard the Whispers in LAX Part 2 right before the Temple folk show up... I don't see what the big mystery is anymore. It's the Others.

Where were the Others when Christian showed up with Sun and Lapidus then? Is Christian an Other? He hangs with Claire, and she most certainly is not an Other. All of the Others were at temple when Sun and Lapidus were at the village.

We most recently heard the Whispers in LAX Part 2 right before the Temple folk show up.
I took that as a red herring. Those whispers didn't seem like they were the same as the ones before. They seemed louder and more noticeable.

One clue I have that the whispers are not the others in the tunnels is some of the things that have been heard are lines from people off island. "Dying sucks" said by Boone at Shannon's dad's funeral and then whispered just before she dies. "It'll come back around" said by Frank Duckett after Sawyer shot him and then in whisper form in "Outlaws" when Sawyer is on the beach. We also have whispers on the autopsy tape from "?" which is clearly off island.

Mr. Find is pulling your leg. Good one, Find. This is probably the main reason that the Whispers are different from the Others whispering: the sound is engineered over 3 channels and has to be decoded from each channel. Some of it is reversed. Seems out of phase with island sounds. Which kinda makes me think of Faraday and his comment about how "the light doesn't scatter properly". Maybe this affects The Whispers effect also.

Some of the whispers are voices and phrases from off-island (Boone: "Hi sis"/ Druckett: "It'll come back around again"). The Whispers are actually observing and commentating on Ben's torture because they are inside the hatch while he's being tortured!. I don't think an Other could pull that one off. What about Locke in the pit contemplating suicide? "Don't do it John, you'll kill every one of us" was the screamed reply via Whisper. I'd say that's a real-time observation from an unseen, yet audible observer.

With talk of "the scope" in some of the conversations ("Hand me the scope/Hide that scope"), I'm not sure if some of it isn't surveillence of some sort. After all, the two guys watching Sawyer on the beach wouldn't have been Others, because they really don't come down to that end of the island. One of them is called "Dennis". Also odd is the statement "Did he (Sawyer) see you" and then "pull the handle and open the hatch" while in the background there is an "intruder alert" voice alarm (audible) going off. It's like they're using some sort of camo and hidden hatches to do surveillence.

So I guess I'm suggesting that there could be two groups of Whispers-some on surveillence and some with a more supernatural feel. Like the ones who send the apparitions (Ben's mom). And yet there is a plan here too: to get some of their people through the sonic fence. That's what they need Ben for-to open the fence for them. They have a problem and wonder if some of the Losties might help them. "How", one of them asks". "We could talk to him" is the reply followed by "to reveal ourselves would ruin everything". So I guess they're not willing to take that chance yet.

Also remember that Ole' Skullface showed up glowing in the bushes (the Open Your Eyes People thread) at exactly the same time as the conversations were going down at the sonic fence. I don't think this is a coincidence. This may be a manifestation. After all, with what is basically a Smoke Locomotive running loose on the island, I don't think anything is off the table.

Personally, I think it would be cool if the surveillers were Dharma people or another faction using EM cloaking suits that play off of the island's magnetics to skulk around and do surveillence while nearly invisible. As Stephen King said of his ending for Lost: "It might creak a little but I could pull it off". Same with this explanation. And I don't really think it would creak, I could run with it...(<>..<>)

Mr. Find is pulling your leg. Good one, Find. This is probably the main reason that the Whispers are different from the Others whispering: the sound is engineered over 3 channels and has to be decoded from each channel. Some of it is reversed...

Thanks, UAC. And a "good job" to you on your scenario. It was almost more believable than mine! ;)

(Just kidding. Actually your post does a very good job of summing up the whispers. Kudos!)

I gotta agree with a lot of people here. There must be different kinds of Whispers.
Other Whispers: Others communicating
"Ghost" Whispers: The more supernatural ones that we hear before ghosts and such.
Smokey Whispers: I think sometimes he MIGHT do whispers when he has scanned somebody and is sort of repeating their memories. An example would be when Sawyer heard the voice of the guy he killed in Austrailia "it all comes round again". Coulda been Smokey messing with his head.

Elaboration on the whispers would be cool. What the hell were the whispers when Hurley saw the Cabin? They certainly weren't the Others.

"With talk of "the scope" in some of the conversations ("Hand me the scope/Hide that scope"), I'm not sure if some of it isn't surveillence of some sort. After all, the two guys watching Sawyer on the beach wouldn't have been Others, because they really don't come down to that end of the island. One of them is called "Dennis". Also odd is the statement "Did he (Sawyer) see you" and then "pull the handle and open the hatch" while in the background there is an "intruder alert" voice alarm (audible) going off. It's like they're using some sort of camo and hidden hatches to do surveillence. "

UAC, that is one of the most interesting of the Whispers. I've never been able to hear the alarm, but don't doubt it's there. I've been able to hear the dialogue, though. In the hatch, weren't there whispers like "How do we get out of hear? Crawl through the pipes, quick!"
I hope after the show's over, one of the sound guys explains it. The words they put into the Whispers might be Easter Eggs of some sort.
100%
Also, the Whispers when kid Ben leaves Dharmaville are pretty blatant.
They're essentially
Ben's Mom: "Don't leave, it's dangerous"
Evil Voice: "You belong to me now, boy"
Can't possibly be the Others talking.

Going off memory, the main thing I remember about the hatch Whispers was, to sum it up, hit him again for me. They were happy that Ben was getting it and were mad when Jack stopped it ("Who called the doctor?"). They were taunting with "Don't break Henry" and "Look he's gonna break and tell them everything"..stuff like that. "We need a torturer too" was another sentiment expressed.

The main thing with the ones watching Sawyer on the beach is that they could be shot. "He could shoot us" was part of the conversation. In fact, they didn't even know about the plane crash. The Dennis guy clued the other one in about it by saying..."They've obviously been in a plane crash"... "I know what it's like to be in a plane crash" and the other guy says "Always complaining"...Then they get detected by Sawyer somewhat and flee through the hatch.

As for the ones in the jungle-linked to the apparitions/Whispers and definitely more of a supernatural/psuedo science nature...:alien: