Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the 43 gifted children presented in The Umbrella Academy, but the series hasn't explained how the women became pregnant in the first place. As the Netflix series gears up for its fourth season, there are still many long-running mysteries viewers hope will be answered. The questions surrounding the circumstances of the Hargreeves siblings' births will need to be addressed sooner rather than later. There are a few plausible theories that could fill in the blanks with the show based on the popular comic series from Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. On October 1, 1989, 43 women went into labor around the world after showing no signs of pregnancy. Reginald adopted seven of those babies, raising them as his own to create the Umbrella Academy.
Reginald's seven adopted children are of course the Hargreeves siblings Luther, Diego, Allison, Five, Ben, Victor, and Klaus - the titular Umbrella Academy. Aside from the Hargreeves siblings, Lila Pitts is the only other known figure born on that extraordinary day in 1989. Despite the revelations around other Umbrella Academy mysteries featured in season 3, insight into the women who gave birth to the 43 babies born on the 12th hour of the first day of October 1989 never came into focus. The only insight initially given to viewers was the series' opening sequence, depicting Viktor's birth mother showing rapid signs of pregnancy while at her swimming class. Shortly after, the young woman gave birth to a child, which was the same case with 42 other women across the globe. Many questions remain, but there are a few compelling theories and comic book details that could provide answers. Here's everything that's known about the 43 pregnancies in The Umbrella Academy, from what clues the show has given so far to the possible significance of the 1989 date.
Umbrella Academy Season 3 Provided More Clues About The Pregnancies
Though The Umbrella Academy is based on the comic book series of the same name, the Netflix show has taken liberties with the live-action narrative. Granted, the comics haven't directly explained the circumstances surrounding the cause of the 43 women's pregnancies, but there was a hint to the cause. The prologue to the Umbrella Academy comics' first book, titled The Apocalypse Suite, focused on an intergalactic boxing match between "Tusslin' Tom" Gurney and a space squid. The exact moment Tusslin' Tom defeated the squid with an atomic elbow, the 43 children born to non-pregnant women were born. The boxing match was clearly responsible for the random pregnancies, but the correlation between the event and the births is still a mystery.
There haven't been any intergalactic boxing matches featured in The Umbrella Academy but season 2 did confirm Reginald is an alien, and season 3 brought more insight into the mysterious jar of lights. Viewers still question Reginald's jar full of lights from his home planet seen in the debut season and what kind of connection it may have on the origins of the 43 gifted children. It's possible Reginald's alien species can emit some kind of energy with the power to impregnate human women. Rather than traditional pregnancies, the involvement of aliens could rapidly increase births while also creating children with superpowers. Maybe a similar epic boxing match will explain the pregnancies, or Reginald will be further connected to the births. The billionaire's involvement would make sense, and it would play into the theory that Reginald is the birth father of Umbrella Academy members.
The biggest clue for how the children were conceived still comes from Sir Reginald Hargreeves' jar of motes. The flashback in The Umbrella Academy season 1 sees Abigail Hargreeves on her deathbed, when she is gifted a white violin by Sir Reginald. Refusing to accept her death, a deflated Reginald lets the motes loose into the air. Abigail Hargreeves shows up again in season 3, where more about her backstory is revealed. In fact, her cryogenically frozen body is what's on the dark side of the moon in another Hargreeves Enterprises base. Since she comes back very much alive at the end of The Umbrella Academy season 3, it's clear that Hargreeves set his Oblivion machine plan in motion a long time ago. It's then revealed that the golden particles that were released are the same ones that entered the mothers who became pregnant, and they also help power the Oblivion machine. So, now it's known that the particles are responsible, but hopefully, The Umbrella Academy season 4 tells more about what they are and how they work.