Hurley arrives in Oz several years too late, the man's widow informs him. Convinced that the numbers were cursed and were causing everyone around him to suffer fatal or debilitating accidents, the man took his own life. According to his wife, the man, along with the loon back in L.A., had been stationed at an army listening post when he'd heard the numbers being broadcast. Beyond that, there were no clues as to their origins or significance.
Facing a dead-end, Hurley decides to head for home...aboard the ill-fated flight that leaves him stranded on the island with the other castaways. Still, even on the island, he can't escape the influence of those damned numbers...
Amidst the papers that Sayeed recovered from Rousseau, one of several other residents of Mystery Island, Hurley discovers his winning lottery numbers scrawled over and over and over again. A faint glimmer of hope...!
Hurley swipes the pages and sets off into the jungle, with Charlie, Jack, and Sayeed, hot on his heels. The four have the sort of fun one has come to expect on this show--booby traps, land mines, rickety rope bridges--and eventually get separated.
Hurley manages to find Rousseau and demands to know the significance of the numbers. She tells him that she doesn't know. She proceeds to explain that, sixteen years earlier, she and her science team had picked up a broadcast while they were out on the ocean: it was a voice repeating those numbers, again and again. They located the source of the transmission, but became shipwrecked as a result. Rousseau and her team eventually found the radio tower that was broadcasting the numbers, but could never divine their meaning, nor could they find the person who'd made the recording in the first place. Eventually, after her entire team was wiped out, Rousseau changed the recording to transmit the distress signal that the survivors had picked up with their transceiver.
Sadly, there were still no answers for Hurley, but at least he'd managed to find one person who believed him when he said the numbers were cursed. Fade to black...
Oooops...almost forgot one detail. In the final shot of the episode, we see the buried hatch. The camera zooms in, and pans down to reveal that same combination of cursed numbers etched into the half-buried metal. Creepy...
Hope that helps, man. I, for one, will be glued to my set next Wednesday...