During Lost’s 100th episode last night, which I thought was one of the best episodes in a long while, there were a number of mysterious on-screen references to something, before and after commercials, that totally eluded me, in between the amazing new clips from Star Trek, Transformers 2 and Terminator Salvation. At one point, I thought the surfer was part of a commercial for another ABC show. Well, a Sci-Fi Wire article has explained the whole thing for me, so I thought I’d share, for those of you who were as confused as I was.

So ABC aired five brief images during the 100th episode of Lost last night, each with the question: What did you see?

The images were apparently a viral campaign for the upcoming sci-fi pilot Flash Forward. The images – a surfer, a sonogram, schoolchildren, a wedding and a funeral – somehow relate to project, which may become a new series and companion to Lost this fall.

Flash Forward, based on a novel by Robert J. Sawyer, will deal with the aftermath of a cataclysmic event, whereby everyone on Earth blacks out for a little over two minutes, during which time they glimpse more than twenty years into their future. From that moment, all human life is transformed by foreknowledge. The show is executive-produced by David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga, and stars Joseph Fiennes, Lost’s Sonya Walger, Courtney B. Vance, Christine Woods and John Cho.

The network also put up a viral web site, TheMosaicCollective.com, which right now only asks the question and also has an e-mail address field.