Only a few hours until the season finale of Lost, and I sure hope it's more spectacular than last year's “It's....a hole in the ground” revelation. We've been promised that we'll find out why the plane crashed and what happens when you stop pushing the button.
So, seeing as I have nothing to lose by being wrong (and it's happened before, unless Vito rises from the grave next week to zombie-rape Finn) here's my prediction.
The button is a “Dead Man's Switch” installed to protect the island's secrets, should the Hanso scientists ever become incapacitated. If the button isn't pressed every 108 minutes, the island's defense system is armed. That system involves big ass electromagnets that, once armed, “disable” planes that happen to fly too close. So Oceanic 815 crashed because Desmond overslept. We'll find this out tonight, because Desmond will return on the yacht. But this revelation will only happen in the last few minutes when they realize there's no-one in the hatch to press the button. The magnets will arm, another plane will crash, and next season, we'll have a whole new batch of survivors.
And possibly Vito & Finn will be on the plane, heading on a love trip to Fiji. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the Lost Action Figures and the Lost Video Game.