In 2001, Richard approached Juliet Burke in Miami. This meek fertility doctor was still under the watchful eye of her ex-husband, Edmund, as she conducted experiments in the hopes of impregnating her barren sister, Rachel. Ben sent Richard to recruit Juliet in the name of Mittelos Bioscience in his attempts to find the reason and cure for pregnant woman dying on the island. Alpert's assistant referred to him as "Dr. Alpert;" however. Juliet addressed him as "Mr. Alpert," suggesting that he might hold a Ph.D. but not be a doctor of medicine. Juliet declined after a cheerful slideshow about the...

In June of 1956, per adult Locke's suggestion, Richard Alpert visited the Tustin hospital where John Locke had been born prematurely a month earlier. Mrs. Locke was inquiring about putting the infant up for adoption when the nurse spotted Richard at the window. As he smiled at the confirmation that Locke had told him the truth, Mrs. Locke commented bemusedly that she did not know who he was. ("Cabin Fever")

Richard again entered Locke’s life in 1961, when he visited the five-year-old while he was in foster care. Richard told Florence (John’s foster mother) that he considered John special...

Richard was one of the "Hostiles" present on the island alongside the DHARMA Initiative. In 1973, a young Ben encountered him after taking off into the jungle, searching for an apparition of his dead mother. Richard, at this time sporting long hair, was dressed in primitive clothing but had a twentieth century holster on his right hip. Richard reassured Ben and asked why he was out in the jungle alone. When Ben explained what he'd seen, and that she had died off the Island, Richard was visibly interested in this development, but told him to return home. Ben, however, pleaded with Richard to...

The first mate of the Black Rock

* Magnus Hanso is described as a ship owner who loved to go to sea. The blast door map references that Hanso lies buried on the Island. The natural assumption of command by a first mate in the event of the death of a ship's captain. Richard Alpert's preeminence among the Island's original Inhabitants
* Richard is a senior member, but not the leader, of the Island's original inhabitants. When the crew of the Black Rock and others aboard found themselves, without warning, stranded well inland on the Island, a period of uncertainty that could have led to mutiny...

Richard's first chronological appearance was at the Others' camp in 1954. It's unclear whether or not Richard was the leader of the Others during this period, because later it was revealed that two of his subordinates in 1954, Ellie and Charles Widmore, eventually become Leaders.

During this time period, the US government had sent military personnel to the Island and other Pacific islands to test hydrogen bombs. One such bomb, Jughead, was brought to the Island, but the Others attacked the soldiers before Jughead could be detonated. The U.S. Army camp on the Island was taken over by the Others,...