A theory has been circling my head for a while now, and that is that The Other's only light that fire (so the smoke would come) to sort of 'give birth' to the Monster, we all know the monster takes the form of black smoke now and the smoke that came from that fire looks very similar. The monster never took the form of that smoke until after the islander's saw the 'Other' smoke coming from the jungle.

Confused? Sorry...

But what do you think?

I know what you mean Losty, sounds like a good theory, quite like that actually!

Thanks DJK!

What does anyone else think?

I think that it could be a very lgical explanation hunni..Well done you for thinking of it..You never know, you could be onto something..

But, I like it, it's better than some of the crap I have heard..

I think that it could be a very logical explanation hunni..Well done you for thinking of it..You never know, you could be onto something..

But, I like it, it's better than some of the crap I have heard..

Thanks, K. I really think i'm onto something here.

I may have missed something here but when did the "monster" turn into the black smoke? I didnt know that the black smoke was the monster. I may have blinked or something and missed it.

It was in the last few ep's in S1.

The black smoke first appeared in Exodus. Although some say they saw it in the Pilot [?].

Anyways by C4 viewing, we still don't know what the black smoke is.

I don't wanna say too much about E4, because it's not even clear in that ep. But I would consider this thread to be a sort of spoiler.

Really! Oooo! I knew I was onto something! But I swear I didn't know about it if i'm right! It just popped into my head!

Well ya might not be right.. that's the whole thing

Who knows really? Don't think the writers even know what they're going on about.

But anyways to answer your question.. hmmm I'm not sure about the Others starting the fire which causes the smoke to come, because when we saw it in Exodus, it seemed to be moving around - sorta like a ghost (as oppose to just normal smoke, that goes up and disappears). Although if the Others have some sorta special ability, then they might be able to control what the smoke does? But we did see Danielle go to the smoke the Other's supposedly lighted with Claire's baby, and it seemed like normal smoke there.

So hmm.. yeah. I think I'm going too far

Oooooo , that is interesting Losty ! Rememeber we did see the black smoke floating around when the plane first crashed in Pilot 1 . Could this advance your theory further ? There was fire and smoke at the crash site so the black smoke could of been created from that like you said . Got me thinking now !

ive been figuring the the smoke monster is maybe 'born' when you don't put the numbers in the computer, and maybe that was the first incident mentioned on the film reel.
the monster is kinda hanging around on the hatch side of the iland too, the tail group never came across it.

I've always thought that the fire was lit no so much to "give birth" to the black smoke monster, but the fire was more of a meeting place for it. I would say that it lives underground, and when it wants to "warn" of something, the smoke meets at the fire so it can be as big as it needs to be.

Ok, my theory needs some work, and as for me being able to actually type whats going on in my head, well not a lot can be said for that. But I hope you sort of get the picture!

maybe the others send up some so the smoke monster will think its a pretty smoke monster girl, and leave the area they want to invade. lol.
they didn't send up smoke to attack the tail people, just when they came to get walt, on the side of the iland the monster chills.