LOST Season 4 Episode 2 Confirmed Dead - Off Island Recap

Confirmed Dead Flashbacks - The Crew of the Helicopter

Off Island
Daniel Faraday (the physicist) Flashback
His is a short flashback. He's watching footage of Flight 815 being found on TV and is strangely sadden by the events. He doesn't know why he is so strongly affected.

Miles Straume (Ghostbuster) Flashback
He goes to an grandmother's house cause busting makes him feel good. Well talking to a dead boy and getting a wad of cash certainly does anyway. He apparently makes contact with the woman's dead grandson, who was murdered, and finds drugs and money. He takes the money and tells the spirit to leave, but leaves the drugs. He also gives the lady half of her money back. In my mind, this does confirm that they are ghost in the world of LOST.

Charlotte Staples Lewis (C.S. Lewis, archaeologist) Flashback
She in in Tunisia in the desert. She too sees confirmation that Flight 815 was found. She doesn't want to believe it apparently. She bribes a man to get into the closed dig. There she finds a polar bear skeleton with a Dharma Hydra Collar. How weird is that?

Frank Lapidus (drunk pilot) Flashback
He too is watching the footage of Flight 815. He however calls the Oceanic hot line and tells the supervisor that the "pilot" they are showing on TV isn't the pilot because he would have never taken off his wedding ring. How does he know? He was supposed to be flying flight 815 and knew the pilot that did.

Naomi (the dead military expert) Flashback
Even though she was dead she too had a flashback. Matthew Abaddon, the scary man that visited Hurley last week, hires her to get this team to the island and back safety. She was the only one of the oddly assembled group with any military training. She asks what is they encounter survivors of 815? Abaddon is adamant that there are no survivors.

Answers:
Oceanic 815 was found and the whole world knows. It was big news all around the globe, in many languages! So survivors being found, when all 324are confirmed dead, would be even bigger news.


Questions:
What is going on with Flight 815?
If that wasn't the pilot, who was it and who put that body and that plane there?
Was it a plant by Abaddon and those at Oceanic or Maxwell Group or something else?
Was it a copy as a result of the Cashmere Effect?
What made Daniel so sad and connected to the find of 815?
What is up with Miles Straume's ghost whispering?
Why were there a Dharma polar bear in the desert?
Why did Abaddon assembly these random people into a team?
What's the connection to C.S. Lewis? (more of this in the on island post)