DHARMA Initiative Underwater
Submarine Beacon & Radio Signal
Jamming Station
The Looking Glass is an underwater DHARMA Initiativestation used as a beacon to help guide in submarines approaching the Island. A secondary purpose appears to be related to communications; the station was used by the Others in 2004 to jam transmissions being broadcast to or from the Island. (The World of the Others) The station is located a short distance offshore from the beach where Sayid first discovered a mysterious cable.
 Water (Fertility) |
 Vegetation (Fertility) |
 Death |
Station History
DHARMA Initiative
The Looking Glass was built and installed in its current location on the sea floor sometime before 1971 or ’72, and was one of the first built by the Initiative. According to Mikhail Bakunin the station serves as a beacon in the ocean aiding the sonar navigation of submarines approaching the Island from the outside world. The station also appears to be equipped with a sonar array which could be controlled from the Flame. (“Enter 77”) One of the original DHARMA engineers who set up the jamming equipment was a musician. (“Through the Looking Glass, Part 1”)
The station appears to have been continuously manned by DHARMA personnel. In 1977, at Jin’s request, Radzinsky sent out an Island-wide broadcast asking any station to call in if they spotted a plane in the area. The Looking Glass reported in last, informing Radzinsky that only a submarine was approaching carrying new DHARMA recruits. (“Namaste”)
During a meeting of the high ranking DHARMA Initiative members in “He’s Our You”, two Looking Glass personnel are present: Rosie, who worked as a nurse at the Looking Glass in 1977, and another unidentified woman.
Later, in caring for young Ben Linus, Juliet was informed that the DHARMA doctor was currently at the Looking Glass and would be there for some time. (“Whatever Happened, Happened”) According to the Lost Encyclopedia, the reason medical personnel helped man the station was due to the danger of being down so deep.
The Others
The Others were aware of and gained control of the Looking Glass sometime after the Purge. Considering the station to be a major component in maintaining security of the Island, Ben created an elaborate fiction within the Others that the station was flooded and inaccessible due to an accident. Only a small number were aware of the truth, and of the station’s role in jamming communications.
It is not clear exactly when, but at some point Ben assigned a security team of two Others: Greta and Bonnie to guard the station and monitor the jamming equipment. The story presented to the rest of the Others was that they had been sent on a mission to Canada. The team had the ability to communicate with Ben, but otherwise were ordered to maintain radio silence. (“Through the Looking Glass, Part 1”)
Recent Events
Learning of the Looking Glass from a schematic (found by Sayid at the Flame) and from Juliet’s information, Jack sent Charlie and Desmond to disable the jamming equipment at the station. Desmond also had a vision that Charlie would enter the underwater station, “flick a switch” to stop the signal interference, then drown in a flooded room. Despite this ominious foreshadowing, Charlie swam down to the station, entering via the moon pool, and discovering the station was, in fact, not flooded. Celebrating his good fortune, he was subsequently captured by Greta and Bonnie. (“Greatest Hits”)
Ben, on learning of Charlie’s arrival over the radio, immediately sent Mikhail to take over the situation. Mikhail arrived at the beach a short time later, sighting Desmond out on the boat above the station and shooting at him. Desmond managed to dive down to the station and concealed himself in a storage locker while Greta and Bonnie were in the control room. (“Through the Looking Glass, Part 1”)
Using scuba gear, Mikhail swam down to the station – where, on Ben’s orders, he killed Greta and fatally wounded Bonnie before being shot in the chest by Desmond with a speargun. Charlie convinced the dying Bonnie to give him the code to turn off the jamming equipment due to her anger towards Ben’s betrayal. With the code, Charlie was able to disable the jamming, subsequently receiving an incoming video transmission from Penny. Unnoticed by Desmond and Charlie, Mikhail had revived himself and slipped into the moon pool. He appeared underwater, outside the control room porthole with a grenade and activated it. Charlie closed and sealed the control room door to protect Desmond, just as the grenade went off, killing Mikhail and shattering the porthole. Charlie drowned as the control room filled with water. (“Through the Looking Glass, Part 2”)
Station
Located entirely underwater, the station appears to show signs of age and neglect but is still functional. It can be surmised that the Looking Glass must possess some sort of working air circulation system.
Cable
A number of cables run from the Flame to other DHARMA stations and facilities all over the Island. One such cable emerges from the jungle, crosses the beach and disappears into the ocean – leading directly to the Looking Glass. Mikhail describes the cable’s purpose as being for communication. (“Enter 77”) (“Greatest Hits”)
The documents found by Sayid in the Flame show the cable in a different configuration than is seen by the survivors in 2004. The side view shows the cable to be an anchor structure near shore where the cable goes inland, yet the top view has a notation indicating the cable is anchored to land. (“Greatest Hits”) This anchoring may have secured the station during the Island’s periodic movement. (“316”)
Station exterior
The station sits offshore from the Island, elevated from the ocean floor on a series of support towers. The schematic of the Looking Glass suggests that the station is located 70 meters (220 feet) below sea level, although in 2004 it is clearly visible from the surface. As it was reached without scuba gear by both Charlie and Desmond, this suggests the station is not nearly so deep. The Looking Glass was well illuminated by underwater lights and a large logo of the station was displayed prominently on one side.
Moon pool
The center of the Looking Glass is taken up by a large industrial bay containing a large moon pool set into the floor. Open to the sea, the pressurized interior prevents the station from flooding and allows submarines to “surface” inside the station. Along the walls are a number of racks and lockers housing scuba gear, at least one speargun, and other equipment. Several watertight hatches lead to other rooms including the control room and the living quarters.
Control room
At one end of the bay a watertight hatch with a window opens into a control room. One wall of the chamber is taken up by a large control panel. The panel appears to have several functions, including the ability to send and receive transmissions and also controls the jamming apparatus used to block transmissions across the Island. The equipment is designed to be able to continue operation even if the station were to be flooded. The jamming equipment appears to be enabled or disabled by entering a numeric code sequence on a keypad. It is likely this room also controls the station’s sonar array, which sends out pings assisting submarines to safely approach the Island. Previously a porthole window opened in the outer station wall.
Associated DHARMA Facility
Associated LOST Characters
Primary Symbolism: Sea & Fertility (Water) Deities
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Water (Fertility) |
 BES |
 HAPI |
 MEHET-WERET |
 MEHYT |
 PHORCYS |
 KHNUM |
 TRITON |
Secondary Symbolism: Fertility (Earth) Deities
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Vegetation (Fertility) |
 MNEVIS |
 DEMETER |
 PERSEPHONE |
DHARMA STATION (Symbolic Sea Deity References)
Decoded LOST Character (Simon Pace)
In Greek mythology, Phorcys (also Phorkys), a primordial sea god, generally cited (first in Hesiod) as the son of Pontus and Gaia. According to the Orphic hymns, Phorcys, Cronus and Rhea were the eldest offspring of Oceanus and Tethys. Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus. His wife was Ceto, and he is most notable in myth for fathering by Ceto a host of monstrous children collectively known as the Phorcydes. In extant Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, Phorcys was depicted as a fish-tailed merman with crab-claw fore-legs and red-spiked skin.
The Phorcydes
Hesiod’s Theogony lists the children of Phorcys and Ceto as Echidna, The Gorgons (Euryale, Stheno, and the famous Medusa), The Graeae (Deino, Enyo, and Pemphredo), and Ladon, also called the Drakon Hesperios (“Hesperian Dragon”, or dragon of the Hesperides). These children tend to be consistent across sources, though Ladon is sometimes cited as a child of Echidna by Typhoeus and therefore Phorcys and Ceto’s grandson.
Apollodorus and Homer refer to Scylla as the daughter of Krataiis, with Apollodorus specifying that she is also Phorcys’s daughter. Apollodorus also refers to Scylla as the daughter of Trienos, implying that Krataiis and Trienos are the same entity. Apollonius cites Scylla as the daughter of Phorcys and a conflated Krataiis-Hekate. Stesichorus refers to Scylla as a daughter of Phorcys and Lamia (potentially translated as “the shark” and referring to Ceto rather than to the mythological Libyan Queen).
The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius cites Phorcys and Ceto as the parents of The Hesperides, but this assertion is not repeated in other ancient sources.
Homer refers to Thoosa, the mother of Polyphemus, as a daughter of Phorcys.
Decoded LOST Character (Brennan)
Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea, whose herald he is. He is usually represented as a merman, having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish, “sea-hued”, according to Ovid “his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells”.
Like his father, Poseidon, he carried a trident. However, Triton’s special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was so terrible, that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast.
According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Triton dwelt with his parents in a golden palace in the depths of the sea; Homer places his seat in the waters off Aegae. The story of the Argonauts places his home on the coast of Libya. When the Argo was driven ashore in the Gulf of Syrtes Minor, the crew carried the vessel to the “Tritonian Lake”, Lake Tritonis, whence Triton, the local deity euhemeristically rationalized by Diodorus Siculus as “then ruler over Libya”, welcomed them with a guest-gift of a clod of earth and guided them through the lake’s marshy outlet back to the Mediterranean.
Triton was the father of Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena.Pallas was killed by Athena during a fight between the two goddesses. Triton is also sometimes cited as the father of Scylla by Lamia. Triton can sometimes be multiplied into a host of Tritones, daimones of the sea.
Symbolic Fertility Deities Reference
Decoded LOST Character (Rosie)
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons (personified by the Hours). Her common surnames are Sito (σίτος: wheat) as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law) as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society. Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of marriage, the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of circa 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the “two mistresses and the king” are identified with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.
Decoded LOST Character (Looking Glass Technician)
Persephone, also called Kore is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the king of the underworld.
The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence she is also associated with spring and with the seeds of the fruits of the fields. Persephone as a vegetation goddess (Kore) and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B (Mycenean Greek) tablets dated 1400-1200 BC found at Pylos, the “two mistresses and the king” are mentioned; John Chadwick identifies these as Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.
In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed; often carrying a sheaf of grain. In Latin, she is called Proserpina.
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