In the midst of the meeting, a question arises: What would the beast eat? Replies are handed left and right, yet one boy states that the beast would eat pigs, which is followed by another boy saying we eat pigs. What is the significance here?

The beast is actually a human, dead pilot that has landed on the island with a parachute which makes him look like a beast at night in the dark.

```He crawls up the hill and, in the failing light, sees the dead pilot with his flapping parachute. Watching the parachute rise and fall with the wind, Simon realizes that the boys have mistaken this harmless object for the deadly beast that has plunged their entire group into chaos.```