I am not doubting you rapierguy, I hadn't watched that episode. I have read the transcripts and I realize they could have errors but it does not say that Kyle was supposed to be taken. Nor does it say that Shawn was an accident here is a copy of the parts of the conversation involving these two "incedents" according to the transcripts...
TOM: You're not my son, are you? ALTER KYLE: No. Kyle was meant to be a channel, a way to communicate. TOM: Communicate with who? ALTER KYLE: With you. To guide you in your dealings with the returnees. But something went wrong. Shawn interrupted the process. TOM: That's what put him in a coma. He was like that for three years, because of you.
TOM: Is that where you took them? My nephew and all the others? ALTER KYLE: Only those we took could prevent the catastrophe from happening. That's why they've been altered and seeded back into the timeline.

I was basing my theory on the transcripts due to the fact that I had not seen the episode, perhaps if they said that it was simply accidently omitted from the transcripts?

Your transcripts are quite right, zipity. I´ve rewatched 1st season final and in any moment they said Kyle (or Shawn)was meant to be taken. Nor the opposite. So we are left free to breed wild theories about it And why they had to do it when there were the two of them if they could get to Kyle at any moment when he´s on his own Fishy, very fishy... By the way, you should see the 1st season, zipity, it was awsome.

I want to see the first season just haven't gotten the chance, thanks for checking that thou, I appreciate it! I didn't think the transcripts would be that far off but you never know...

I wonder if there has to be certain "environmental" requirments, or some kind, for them to take people. And the best chance they had was when the both of them were together? Or for the download process to work properly it was best for him to be intoxicated? It's best to try it when there is only one other person there rather than during a party with a lot of people. It does seem odd they would do it while he was not alone, the only other idea I have is that they wanted Kyle to be able to witness Shawn's abduction and they just didn't expect Shawn to do anything, I really have no idea though! I really liked the idea of neither of them being meant to be taken, but that did leave some questions, Oh, well...
What do you think?

A quote from Shawn´s character profile:
"The future didn't want Shawn Farrell (Patrick Flueger) but when he blocked his cousin Kyle's abduction, Shawn was taken instead."
I found it while I was looking for "your" quote,zipity

Interesting, thankyou for the info Kia! By the way you are sniffing in the wrong direction for the quote, your getting colder, when your ready I will give you a slightly more helpfull hint! Now am I being too mean? seriously let me now and I will give you some slack, I don't want to be too much like the real Master Mind and end up driving people to the looney bin ya know!

Good question Thogek, that could be true! Their profiler quiz on the home page is supposed to tell you what your ability would be if you were abducted and it says "There abilities may have been based on their distinct personality" Which would indicate that is not neccessarily true... The same rule could possibly apply to the character profile as well.

Good theory zipity! Glad to see you started a post on this. There are definitely a few strange circumstances to what happened on Highland Beach when Shawn as abducted and Kyle was put into a coma. Kia and Thogek had a good point about the PFTF choosing that time to download/abduct Kyle. It doesn't make sense unless they also wanted to take Shawn. I feel like Shawn was meant to be abducted because of his immense roll so far with the 4400. If Shawn hadn't been abducted, would there have been a different healer? Because that seems like an ability that would definitly have an impact on the future. Shawn could have saved the lives of future inventors or scientists who would have died instead.

I think there is a possibility that Kyle was never meant to be taken and just to have the future entity (or whatever it is) be downloaded into him. There are a few things that has been bothering me though, 1)if Shawn was meant to be taken and Kyle wasn't, why did they go after Kyle first? it would have been easier to take Shawn then download the stuff into Kyle. 2)The highland beach incident was in 1999, but the 4400 returned in 2001. If Kyle hadn't meant to be taken, and if the download had gone correctly he would have had to wait for 3 years before he could really explain to Tom what was going to happen. Tom certainly wouldn't have believed Kyle in 1999 if he talked about the 'castrophe' and people coming back in a ball of light.

I may not have thought through everything very carefully, but I just wanted to post my opinion.

Thank you 4400grl, I appreciate the compliments. Shawn has played an important role in my opinion as well, and I suppose another healer could have been picked up but I don't know that any two people could have the exact same healing ability ya know? If abilities are based on personalities then those with the same general personality would have similar abilities but each one has their own quirks which would cause the variation in the "same" ability. Does that make sense?

I will try to answer your questions with out being too confusing!
OK, "if Shawn was meant to be taken and Kyle wasn't, why did they go after Kyle first? It would have been easier to take Shawn then download the stuff into Kyle"
I agree that it would have been easier to take Shawn first but we don't know how there technology works either. I am thinking that maybe they only have the "access" to a specific time once. I have never seen where they have had two abductions back to back, so I am wondering if they are only able to "touch down" once during an undetermined amount of time (months?, days?, hours?) So if they were only able to "touchdown" once during the time frame that they were both there then they would have to handle them both at the same time, I also think that maybe when an abduction takes place it is as if the person is being sucked into a portal, kinda like a vacuum, as that person is sucked through the portal it closes up behind them preventing them from "falling" back into their time. Are you still with me here, I know it’s complicated. Anyway, if the portal closes as someone is abducted then they would not be able to abduct Shawn and then go right back and download Kyle. So they had to download Kyle first, so that the portal would remain open and then they could abduct Shawn which would cause the portal to close.

"The highland beach incident was in 1999, but the 4400 returned in 2001. If Kyle hadn't meant to be taken and if the download had gone correctly he would have had to wait for 3 years before he could really explain to Tom what was going to happen. Tom certainly wouldn't have believed Kyle in 1999 if he talked about the 'catastrophe' and people coming back in a ball of light"
Very good question, after the disappearance of Shawn Kyle would be asked a lot of questions! How would you explain that you saw your cousin got sucked up by a beam of light? I think that their would be some serious doubts but if Kyle took Tom to the beach and then the conduit made contact with Tom then he would probably be more inclined to listen to Kyle and believe what he said! Remember in season one when the conduit talked to him they were standing in a "spot light" and the time of day changed? I think. I believe it would happen the same way and an experience like that would be hard to discount. It would also have given Tom time to prepare. OR Kyle may have still been rendered "temporarily" unconscious after the event, maybe until someone found him? In the process the entity could suppress his memory of the event, making the doctors think that Kyle just has momentary amnesia (can’t remember what its called) about what happened that night and as the time of their return approached it would become active and the conduit would let Tom Know what was going on, and Kyle would give him a first hand account of what he saw as well when his memory was released. But until the right time approached he would have been able to live out his life normally except for the “unexplained” disappearance of Shawn.

I hope that all makes sense. If you let me know I will try to find a better way to explain it, it seems like my thoughts tend to jumble up in my brain and come out all at once when I type!