In the episode about Ben's childhood, "The Man Behind the Curtain" the Dharma Initiative members refer to "the hostiles" several times. Are these hostiles who we know now as "the others" or are they a completely different group of people? Perhaps these "hostiles" are the source of the whispering that many of the losties have experienced, or perhaps they are real natives of the island, a completely different race, one with four toed beings. Many times, we have heard Ben tell characters that his people are not the bad guys, but then who are? If there is a group of people on the island that the losties have not yet directly encountered, then who are they, and why are they so seemingly invisible?