The Hanso Foundation

It appears that ABC has really upped the ante for this off-season with their new advertising blitz for Lost. Dubbed The Lost Experience, to capitalize on the fact that users who choose to participate will really feel immersed in the whole thing, as if they are actually experiencing it for themselves, it started with an advertisement show during a Lost episode, and has blossomed across the Internet, taking discussion boards and email boxes by storm. I have now collected comments and submissions into one place, and I will continue to update this entry as needed as the Experience progresses.

Update: This entry is for the initial web site of The Hanso Foundation. For comments about the new web site of The Hanso Foundation, please see The New Hanso Foundation entry instead. Since this entry refers to the original incarnation, chances are very high that you probably want to comment there. Feel free to leave a comment, but anything new that you have to say here will probably only be for the historical record. Thank you for your cooperation.

Below is the list of all the information that has been collected to this point. If you notice any inaccuracies or would like to see anything added to this list, please let me know and I’ll be happy to do so. In any case, enjoy your experience and I hope that this collection of information may help in some small way to further your enjoyment of it in some way!

• In the episode titled Two for the Road, aired May 3, 2006, there was a commercial that had a phone number to call the Hanso Foundation. That number was 877-HANSORG. If you’re in Australia, you’ll want to call 1800 22 77 17 (thanks for the update, Allison and Sebastian). If you’re in the UK, you’ll want to call 0800 66 66 40 instead (thanks for that number, Tony!). Contact me with any additional international numbers.
• Once you call the number, you are given a tree of options. Option 1 is the general mailbox, and while listening, Persephone breaks in to give you the password of Breaking Strain. This password is not “Breaking String”, “Breaking Train” or anything else that sounds close. You can listen to the other tree items (options 2-5 are the only ones currently available), but there do not appear to be any other clues currently available here. It is interesting listening, however.
• Go to The Hanso Foundation website at www.thehansofoundation.org. Watch the intro if you like, then go to the main menu, and from there, sign up for the newsletter. Enter a user name. It does not matter what user name you use, but you should remember what name you use, or you will have to do this again later. When you enter a name, Persephone (rememeber her?) breaks in and asks if you can read this. If you type “no”, you are kicked out. Don’t type “no”. Type yes. You are then asked for the password. Type breaking strain.
• It does not seem to matter if you use the appropriate case, or even if you include a space in the middle or not. Once you do this, you will receive a series of “login” messages from Persephone. At this point you are “logged in” to the site. Until you do this, most of the rest of the site is inactive. Therefore, do this first. If something else isn’t working, try this step, then try that step again, and it will likely work for you. Once you have signed in, you can sign back in using the same name and be welcomed back, along with (presumably) given any new messages. At this writing (as of June 1, 2006), there have been no new messages.
• Now that you are logged in, you can go to Joop’s Corner. Click to send Joop a message. Once again, it does not matter what you type. Just type something. Even a single letter will work. Then click send When you do, Joop will freak out a bit. Then connect the ringed dots, then click the red dot and you can read a memo about a problem the foundation had with the Global Welfare Consortium, dealing with primates and human gene therapies. Click the signature for an apology letter, and a hand-written note about The Hanso Foundation: Setting world-speed records for subverting authority.
• Next, go to the Executive Bios page. Under Alvar Hanso’s picture is a date: October 28, 2003. This is a link, so click it. View the movie, clicking links as they appear, to follow the trail of Alvar Hanso across Europe, and find out that he hasn’t been seen since 2002, yet his picture is dated 2003. If he hasn’t been seen, who is running the company, and why are they faking his appearance?
• On May 10, 2006, the Question Mark episode aired, and with it a commercial directing viewers to the www.subLYMONal.com site. Once there, another flash movie greets you, and by clicking on the monitors, you reveal a code, Heir Apparent, and a link to The Hanso Foundation website, but this takes you directly to the Executive Bios page. Click on the page of Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk to reveal a box in the middle of the page, and type in the code there to view another movie. This one shows that perhaps he isn’t a doctor at all.
• Visit the Active Projects page, then the page for the Worldwide Wellness and Prevention Development Program. Then click the World Map link. Click just to the right of Florida, about in the area of the Bahamas. A station will be highlighted to the left. If you hover over the area below the station, some gibberish will come up with some numbers. The numbers have been translated as letters that mean “Missing Organs”.
• During Three Minutes, on May 17, 2006, a new commercial came along, and a new web site too, www.LetYourCompassGuideYou.com. After clicking through and answering that you are one of the good ones, you find yourself in a directory of users. All but three are protected. One that is not is ahanso, which takes you to the foundation web site. Another that is not is hmcintyr, which gives you a much more intersting look at the man’s personal files, including one universal jeep image that includes the words The Mouth Piece, which you’ll want to remember. You can also get the password from watching the Jeep video and unscrambling the text ECHO ME UTEP HIT at the end. Then, go back to the Executive Bios page, and key those words into the box that now shows on Hugh McIntyre’s page, and you’ll be able to view a movie about him cheating on his wife. Mr. Family Values indeed. The pthompso directory also does not appear to be protected, but contains mostly DaimlerChrysler advertising, nothing useful that I could find.
• The novel Bad Twin was released by fictional author Gary Troup, who was aboard Oceanic Flight 815. This is, apparently, the manuscript that was being read by Sawyer a few weeks ago, and it is also rumored that the book was written by Stephen King. The foundation released a disclaimer for the novel, which could be found in a hidden directory on their web site.
• On (or about) May 19, 2006 letters started flashing across the picture of Peter Thompson on the Executive Bios page. These letters spell out survivor guilt. If you enter the words into the new text box under Peter’s picture on his bio page, you can view three small clips about his lawsuit expertise – he’s been involved in suits where nuclear, oil and tobacco giants won and caused all sorts of grief for the little guy. Ironic, considering that Peter himself was left with cancer after a lifetime of smoking. There are also words superimposed on these movies, that appear to say Don’t believe his lies. As with the other passwords, case doesn’t seem to matter, neither does the space between the words.
• During the season finale Live Together, Die Alone, a new commercial was aired that directed viewers to www.HansoCareers.com. If you run a search (you can search for just about anything) and view the results, then view those results, you will notice certain letters that are lighter than the others (highlighting the job description can help pick out the letters). Those letters are: n s l u t m I e m A y a. Unscrambling these letters you get Inmate Asylum. Highlight the whole page to find a hidden link to the Executive Bios page, and enter this as the password once you’re there. As before, you can enter this in any case you like, and even the space in the middle doesn’t seem to matter, but make sure you’ve logged in first. As the page starts to deteriorate, you can click on the login box to watch a multi-part movie on criminal activities. Look for clickable parts to keep things moving.
• Visit the Mathematical Forecasting Initiaitve page from the Active Projects page, then click the MFI logo along the right column to bring up an interactive map. Three of the items allow you to enter numbers. For the US, enter 42,000 (with or without comma seems to work), for Italy, 10.4 and for Sudan, 2.55. When you do, each of those icons glows and a new icon is displayed in the Indian Ocean. Click it for a short movie and a message from Persephone about The Hanso Foundation – “Starting Wars, So You Don’t Have To”.
• Now check out another of the Active Projects – the Worldwide Wellness and Prevention Development Program. Once there, click Press Release, then the word miracle (about in the middle of the press release). You’ll get an input box. Using “D20” from the “hole3” picture (also known as deuterium oxide) as a clue, enter the phrase heavy water. As always, capitalization and space don’t seem to matter. Use the very awkward wheels to scroll around the microfilm viewer and check out the paper that talks about an illegal organ harvest program, and ties of the organization to a local hospital. There’s even some audio on this one (click the phone to answer it when it rings).
• Sometime in the first week of June, a countdown clock appeared on the Institute for Genomic Advancement project page. Shortly after the timer hit zero, a new commercial came on during Boston Legal. It advertised a web site for www.RetrieversOfTruth.com. You can visit and sign up for a newsletter. Do so and you will see a few words that stand out. One of those words is “porter”. Return to the site and enter this in the box and you will be able to view a secret message board. Amongst the discussions listed here is a reference to the site www.RicherDeeperBroader.com, and in the source code for that site you’ll see an arrow pointing the word Parthenogenesis. This, in turn, can be used for the password on the Institute for Genomic Advancement project page, which will provide you with a series of pictures on the Dharma Initiative.
• Persephone’s page led to a fourth hole and a new file, while the Mental Health Appeal page was updated with an Inquire Today box. If you take the file names q9als2002, t9agen75 and u8egnce86 and Persephone’s message latest message, “Timeless Together”, and pull the ending digits from the files (2002/75/86), you are left with q9alst9agenu8egnce, an anagram for light sequence again. Type that into the box and you get a letter related to the Vik Institute and a memory game (like Simon) about the Department of Heuristics and Research Material Applications (that spells “DHARMA” for the rest of us). Thanks Just Willow from Inside the Experience! The game apparently… does nothing.
• Another update from Persephone’s page has things jumping. It has several objects: Recorder, Envelope, Card, Lipstick, Umbrella, Scissors, Eraser. Note the first letter of each of those objects and you have… RECLUSE. Now click the word mortality on the Life Extension Project page and enter the password of (dum de dum) recluse. This may be the last thing you see, as once you do, the page shuts down for you.
• Actually, the site is shutdown for “good” as of the middle of June. There is, however, a link with a message from Dr. Thomas Mittelwerk, and if you keep really still for 108 seconds, you’ll actually have the opportunity to watch a “hidden” training video that asks what happened to Dharma. Of course, this isn’t the end. If you view the source of the page, you’ll have clues to lead you to the next step.
• Missed the site? Missing the site? Check out this The Fuselage has a blow-by-blow account, just in case it doesn’t come back up again. Or even if it does, and you just want a taste now because you don’t want to wait.

I’ll also address some common questions that have been asked and comments that have been made. However, now that the site is “shutdown”, many of these may no longer be relevant.

• You don’t have to visit Joop before (or after) you do anything else. Just make sure you do the newsletter part first, and you’re set. The rest is up to you. Even though (for instance) the part about Hugh McIntyre came online after the part about Alvar Hanso, it’s all active now. Do it in whatever order you like, or whatever order makes sense to you.
• On the site (and on just about any flash-based site) you can press the TAB key to move from one link to the next. This is helpful if you don’t want to move your mouse carefully all over the screen to try and find clickable things. Just press tab and watch where the yellow box moves to see what you can do. One note: If it’s a text box, it usually won’t be highlighted, so you’ll need to watch the box. If it disappears, start typing and see if letters appear.
• At various times throughout the hour, the clock on the page turns to OB:EY and provides a link to the sublymonal page (the minutes appear to correspond to the numbers on the show, or at least 15 and 42 after the hour). You can go directly there and avoid waiting. There’s no difference.
• The project page for the Electromagnetic Research Initiative now has a nifty X and Y axis coordinate as you move around the screen and a wacky date under the picture. If you make the coordinates match the date (629, 291, the middle of the graph) you can click and show a compass. You will be taken to a page with a title of Permissum Vestri Complector Rector Vos (allow to whirl compass guide you, apparently). This is the same page as if you go to www.letyourcompassguideyou.com. As with the OB:EY clock, there’s no difference. Use whichever method you prefer.
• While “namaste” (pronounced “nah-MAH-stay”) sounds like a clue, and might be at some point, it probably isn’t. It’s more like “goodbye”. Or perhaps “aloha” would be more accurate. If you want more detail, it is An ancient Sanskrit word meaning: “I honor the place within you where the entire Universe resides. I honor the place within you of Love and Light, of Truth and Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only ONE of us”. There are different definitions. All are substantially the same. Leave it alone for now.
• If anything doesn’t seem to work, remember to sign up for the newsletter first. If you’ve done that, and you still don’t see changes, try clearing your browser’s cache and/or restarting the application.
• If your thought is <anything>.thehansofoundation.org is a clue, do some more research first and find a clue to really support your logic (like something at that site), because you can put anything in front of the domain name and it will work. As to the domain registrations, the sites registered in conjunction with the experience are registered by real companies. A company named BSSP registered the subLYMONal site and Daimler Chrysler the letyourcompassguideyou site for real reasons and they have nothing to do with the show. It doesn’t mean anything.
• Bad Salzdetfurth, Lower Saxony (found on the Electromagnetic Research Initiative page) is a city in Germany. It might prove useful at some point, but that doesn’t mean it is so now. Just because it’s spelled strangely to us in the US doesn’t mean it isn’t an actual place somewhere else. Try Google.
• You don’t have to try and figure any of it out for yourself. But where’s the fun in that, people?

If you leave a comment, expect to have it edited, because I’m tired of people leaving something that has been said before, leaving something that is inaccurate or just plain saying something that isn’t true. Use your heads, people. Most everything that you’re saying has been said before. Search before you speak.