The arrival of a dead parachutist and the twins’ mistaken identification of him as the beast turn an unseen adult war into a seemingly immediate threat. Wind animates the body and its parachute on the mountain-top; fear then animates the boys, until their attempt to attack the beast becomes the killing of Simon. The episode makes a grim distinction between what is physically present and what the boys believe they see—and shows how little that distinction can matter once terror becomes collective action.

A sign from the adult world

The night begins with the boys’ longing for grown-ups. Ralph, Piggy, and Simon imagine adults who would know what to do, keep order, and send a message. As they sleep, a sudden explosion and a corkscrew trail cross the sky. The narration identifies this as a sign from the world of adults, whose battle is being fought high above the boys, beyond the reach of sound. Beneath it, a figure descends under a parachute. Its limbs dangle; changing winds carry it across the reef and lagoon towards The mountain.

The body lands among the rocks, but the wind does not let it lie still. The parachute catches and pulls at its lines, dragging the figure through flowers and over boulders until it reaches the mountain-top. Tangled cords hold the helmeted head between the figure’s knees. When the breeze tightens them, its head and chest lift as though it were looking out; when the wind slackens, it bows again. The repeated movement is not an act of life, but it supplies the frightening appearance of one. The parachute and corpse become a sight whose physical explanation is hidden from the boys who encounter it.

The twins see a beast

At dawn, Sam and Eric approach the signal fire, which has nearly gone out while they slept on watch. They coax its embers back to life, warm themselves, and watch the flames light the rocks around them. As the fire’s wooden shelter collapses and throws a wider circle of light, Eric notices a shape beyond it. The forest roars in the rising wind, the fire blows sideways, and fabric flaps nearby. The twins freeze, seize each other, and flee over the rocks. What they have seen is the parachutist and his wind-tugged equipment, but they leave believing that a beast is close behind them.

They wake Ralph and describe a creature with fur, wings, eyes, teeth, and claws, one that seemed to sit up and move. The morning light does not calm their account: Eric’s face is scratched from the flight, and the marks appear to confirm the danger to the listening boys. At the assembly, Ralph holds up The conch but hesitates to sound it; the boys understand the shell as a signal to gather. Sam and Eric share it to speak, their recognized unity reflected in the fact that one conch serves both. Their report transforms a frightening night encounter into a public claim, and the circle of boys turns outward, gripping sharpened wooden spears as though making a fence against the threat.

Fear becomes a plan

The report divides the boys over what should follow. Jack wants a hunt, while Ralph doubts that wooden spears can help and asks whether the twins might be mistaken. Piggy argues for staying where the group is safer; Ralph counters that they cannot remain cramped in one place or abandon food and the fire. The dispute is not merely about whether the creature exists. It is also about whether fear will dictate the group’s movements, and who will decide what the group does next.

The parachutist’s arrival gives the imagined beast a concrete shape without giving the boys a reliable way to understand it. The twins’ testimony is sincere, their scratches are visible, and the body’s movement in the dark has a natural cause—but the boys possess only the report, not the explanation. Their growing readiness to hunt makes the mistake consequential: an object moved by wind is treated as an enemy that can be pursued and killed. The rescue fire, which is supposed to keep the boys connected to the adult world, has instead helped illuminate the scene that intensifies their fear.

From offering to killing

Later, when Jack’s hunters kill a sow, the hunt supplies another pattern for facing the supposed beast. Jack leaves the sow’s head on a sharpened stick as a gift, and the others run off, leaving Simon alone with it. The pig’s head, flies, blood, and the boys’ fear gather around the idea of an enemy that must be appeased. This does not reveal the parachutist to the group; it shows how the beast has become a focus for actions and anxieties that no longer depend on understanding what was actually seen.

During a storm, Jack urges the boys to dance. Roger takes the part of the pig, the hunters circle him with spears, and the littluns jump around the outside. Ralph and Piggy, frightened by the sky, also find themselves drawn into the ring. Its chant, “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”, grows into a regular rhythm. When Simon stumbles out of The forest, crying about a dead man on a hill, the boys do not recognize his news. They take him for the beast they have been expecting, crowd around him, and strike, bite, and tear at him. The person attempting to bring the group closer to the truth is killed by the group’s misidentification.

The exposed truth and its aftermath

The storm does not stop with Simon’s death. Rain breaks over the struggling crowd, and the boys scatter, leaving Simon’s body on the shore. Above them, the wind fills the parachute again. The figure rises, sways through the air, and moves over the treetops before being carried across the lagoon, over the reef, and out to sea. The narrative thereby reveals the physical source of the twins’ sighting: what seemed to them to be a living beast was a dead man’s body, moved by wind and tangled lines.

The body’s passage out to sea is an answer the boys have not obtained by investigation or discussion. They have already killed Simon, and the evidence that could have corrected their belief departs without being understood by the group. The sequence binds two forms of violence together: the distant adult war that sends the parachutist down, and the boys’ own storm-driven violence against Simon. The mistaken sighting is therefore more than a false report about a strange shape. It is the hinge between an external catastrophe and a human one: a dead figure is made to appear alive by the wind, while living boys, caught in fear and collective ritual, fail to recognize a boy trying to tell them the truth.