Jacob is real, not smoke or a ghost in my opinion. Ben is holding him captive somehow and leading the others to believe he is taking his orders from Jacob. It seems as though he may have been altered somehow from his human form. Possibly through some type of Dharma experiment that has left him trapped in another dimension. Remember the brainwashing scene with karl had the voice in the background that said..."only fools are enslaved by time and space." Also, when you read the whisper transcripts it would seem that there may be others like Jacob on the island. Present, yet invisible to the inhabitants..... except for a few whispers.

ooh, I like the idea of invisible people hanging around in the jungle! cool

So If Jacob isn't real, who was this guy? Is it a real guy or a manifestation of Smokey? A mass hallucination brought on by as many Apollo bars as kids can eat? (see the Lost Experiece for the candy bar thing)

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`Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!'

-- Alice, from “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland”

that richard guy seems like hes immortal. and maybe locke is too cause he heard jacob and plus he was imacculatley concieved or whatever. but i was thinking that richard is jacob alpert some how

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...lost

Could it somehow be a alter ego/personality of Ben ? Something that he isn't even aware of ? That his anger /will controls or gets out of control via his emotions ?

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If I could wake up in a differant place , at a differant time , could I wake up as a differant person ? ? ? Tyler Durden

Has anyone seen an old movie called Forbidden Planet? Basically it goes like this: on an alien planet, humans find an old alien machine that manifests a persons "Id"-or subscious. In the movie, a scientist feels threatened buy visiting astronausts and manifests a monster to destroy their spaceship. The whole jacob seen with Ben and Locke reminded me of this movie, not that there is any real connection

Hey! Good catch, Clevergirl. Forbidden Planet, starring Leslie Nielsen!

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`Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!'

-- Alice, from “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland”

That's very Forbidden Planet. I wonder if they would go that route. Then again though, Ben seems to do bad things so deliberately it's hard to say what would be subconscious and what conscious.

Does anyone think this has some type of extreme futuristic technology elements?

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"You Don't Even Know What Your Running From!"-Jack

good point.. besides when Ben referred to Jakob's anger, he said he is a kind of guy that 'summons you'- a peculiar word often used in the context of supernatural powers, magic craft etc.

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"Bear...? Is that you?"-- Hurley S03E4