The pilot, or rather, his body, arrive on the island suspended by his parachute after the boys all fall asleep. Because they're sleeping, they fail to see the "sign" that Ralph wished the grown-ups would send, which is the sight of a far-off battle between jet fighters in the night sky. Ironically the sign that this sends, since it is only revealed to the reader, is that the adult world is still consumed with the war that stranded the boys on the island in the first place, and that getting off the island is no guarantee of safety.
The pilot is shot down during the fighting, and his body lands in such a way that the strings of his parachute cause him to move when the wind blows in a particular manner, so that he is analogous to a marionette. When the boys discover him, they misinterpret his body as the Beast.
The pilot may represent several things;
- religion, mythology and superstition, in that Simon was able to correctly figure out that the pilot was a human, but the other boys simply accepted that it was the Beast and pursued the issue no further.
- the close relationship of humans to death and destruction; throughout the story we see that these things follow humans wherever they go
- the fact that humans are ultimately manipulated and controlled by their environment, and are at its mercy despite how long their technology may prolong their resistance
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