[D-Roc]

This episode seemed to suggest (to me at least) that the Others we saw were from the 'original native stock'. I just get the feeling that those who travel with Alpert are all 'natives' - perhaps all ageless aswell.

with this in mind there's a couple of interesting things which happened. The whispers made a return, in a very similar fashion to the season 2 finale when they appeared moments before the Others rounded up JKS, M+H.

Since then I've come to the conclusion that the whispers are of the dead..voices of the spirits who reside behind the curtain, as it were - Shannon, Boone, Nikki and other people who have died on (and maybe off) the island.

So how to reconcile this with the fact that the whispers appeared before the Others made their attack on Team Keam? Could it be that the whispers are part of the "natives" attack ploy? Do they have the power to command whispers to disorientate their enemies? Perhaps the "natives" are dead themselves, thus helping to explain Alpert's inability to age - afterall, Claire was able to physically exist yet also be dead wasn't she...

Or perhaps the whispers just appear whenever drama is going down?

hopefully we'll find some reconciliation with this in season 5..