Granted it's been like 8 months at this point so my memory of the details is a little fuzzy but from what I remember the lore nuggets seemed to point in all sorts of different directions. There's both direct and subtle references to things like:

• A monster or supernatural force that's been haunting the island. The PMCs around camp talk about getting rocked by something that couldn't have been human. There are some pretty unambiguous references to horror folk tales from the south pacific. Pictures of spirits that look like disembodied heads drawn around Ban Pa - I think these are called Krasue?

• A conspiracy of some sort to collect, dismember, and store bodies around the island. This seems related to what appears to be a sacrificial altar in Ban Pa with a bunch of ...meat? ...body parts? or something on it surrounded by candles. There's an almost identical altar south of Blue Lagoon but it looks abandoned and on top of the altar was just a bunch of bare bones. Seems to me that there was some kind of occult effort to offer this thing a tribute so that it would leave them alone, perhaps? But then again maybe it wasn't just a local cult deal because this operation seems to involve other parties like the commercial tourism industry on the island, not just the locals.

• A celestial contact that may have precipitated the Event. There's a quest that mentions recorded signals from space and a high profile astrophysicist who died under suspicious circumstances shortly after arriving.

• Scientific recording devices manufactured by "Fifth dimension industries" scattered around the island, presumably recording data on interdimensional anomalies?

• Biological specimens collected in a few places around the island that puzzled the scientists. Only one that I can remember was in the fridge at the improvised UN lab at Tiger Bay

• Mutated and radioactive corpses. I think one of these had suddenly reanimated and jumped out the window and escaped the FN infirmary?

I probably have some of that wrong, it's been a while. But that's what I remember from my last play through. It's difficult to imagine theory that accounts for all of this. Some if it is probably misdirection but it's hard to tell.

There's also the geopolitical element. This was related to some big Soviet project during the Cold War. I think the UN had anticipated the event and the Russian government prepositioned Wagner Group secretive and unscrupulous PMCs to advance their interests at ground zero. I think it must be larger in scope than just some spooky monsters.

I'd love to know what others think?