Back to 'Mysteries of the Universe'...

We totally forgot to check out Parts 4 and 5 of the Mysteries of the Universe mock-doc on ABC.com, but here they are. They include some interesting details about the Dharma Initiative.

Part 4 (released Oct. 15) talks about Alvar Hanso, who attended the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) as an exchange student and stayed with the DeGroot family when Dharma founder Gerald DeGroot was a child, pre-World War II. Gerald's college records have been expunged from existence. Part 4 also shows us a new photo of the ultra-mysterious Danish munitions magnate, who is the powerful financier behind Dharma. In this photo, Alvar -- whom we had only seen previously from a distance, standing behind a window in a Dharma orientation film -- is sporting a beard.

In Part 5, which became available on Nov. 16, we hear of a Dharma food drop gone astray on a Tongan island. "Is the Dharma Initiative located on one of the 169 islands in Tonga?" Alvar Hanso, of course, is supposed to be the supplier of the food drops. Is the DI's octagonal logo perhaps connected to "Communist China?" the narrator asks portentously. "We know it wishes to remain shrouded in secrecy... Only time will tell the fate of this Mysteries of the Universe!"

ABC.com says extended versions of these five clips, plus Part 6 of the Mysteries series, will be available on the Blu-ray and DVD versions of Lost's Season 5, to be released on Dec. 8.

Lostpedia.wikia.com, in its interesting article on the Mysteries series, says the full version of the mock-doc will run for 26 minutes and 15 seconds. Since the Lost team helped create the Mysteries show, it seems that at least some of the information it contains could be considered canonical.

More from 'Mysteries of the Universe'

It's Sept. 8, meaning it's time for installment 3 of ABC.com's Mysteries of the Universe, the '70s-style mock-TV-doc purporting to investigate the cult-like Dharma Initiative.

In this video clip, we hear of a church in Los Angeles that has received "upward of $1.5 million from a private organization." We are told the land under the church is owned by an array of shell companies, responsible for numerous invoices and purchase orders for a vast, mysterious shopping list. (What church would ever need submarine fuel, ammunition, pneumatic tubing or zookeeper supplies, not to mention "psychotropic drugs and other pharmacological supplies"?)

There is an ominous reference to "brainwashing." And, in passing, we also hear of a chemist named Oldham who was interviewed for a job at Dharma. Hmm... wasn't that the name of the guy who fed a truth serum, on an LSD-type sugar cube, to the "captured Hostile" Sayid?

'Mysteries of the Universe' promotion for LOST

ABC.com has just started posting "vintage" video clips, purportedly from Mysteries of the Universe, "a shortlived television series of the 1980s."

Moreover, ABC.com says, "the topics explored may be of particular interest to fans of Lost." The cult-like Dharma Initiative, of course, is one of those topics:

The Dharma Initiative: A project discussed for years in and around conspiracy circles. Once thought to be lost, this explosive documentary series has never been seen before...until now.

The first of five video clips was posted last Thursday, July 23; the second will be posted Aug. 4, the third on Sept. 8, the fourth on Oct. 15 and the fifth on Nov. 16.

And we're sure it's no coincidence those dates all correspond to The Numbers.