Entering the QAnon Universe

Q Dayta Media. In this first episode, will be getting to grips with what Q and On is for those that don't know, looking into the history of this strange movement, and hearing from some of the main researchers involved in trying to dismantle Q and On. On juneen, a man blocked a bridge near the Hoover Dam with a homemade

armored vehicle. Inside. The man held firearms and nine hundred rounds about nisition So now in FBI custody tonight after blocking traffic on the Hoover damn bypassed bridge with a truck, Arizona troopers say Right had a handgun and rifle inside the truck and a note that read released the o I G Report. According to police, he did this as a protest, demanding that a report he'd heard about via an online conspiracy be released to the public. This conspiracy

theory started in October. That's when someone calling themselves Q Clearance Patriot first wrote a public message on the notorious for Chan website. The original poster, now known as Q, inferred that they were a US government insider with knowledge that would expose a deep state conspiracy within American politics. This spawned what is now the Q and On phenomena, the conspiracy theory so complex that it's formed a cult

like following. Many of its followers think Q is associated with Donald Trump and that he's cryptically community cating with them via obscule image boards online. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world believe in this now, and as a result, Q and On has torn families apart, led people to violence, and it's even infiltrating the highest levels

of government with disinformation. Now, more than seventy U S congressional candidates of either shared or outright endorsed Q and on material, and President Trump himself is even given availed thumbs up to the movement. During the pandemic, the Q and On movement has been appears to be getting a lot of followers. Can you talk about what you think about that and what you have to say to people

who are following this movement right now? Well, I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. But I don't know much about the movement. It's difficult. That's the cross of the theory. It is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Does that sound like something you are behind or I haven't. I haven't heard that. But is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?

If if I can help save the world from As I've already mentioned, outside of what the conspiracy community is saying, nobody quite knows the true identity of Q. We want to change that with this series, so we'll be looking into the many different theories surrounding this, such as the idea that the Q account has changed hands, that it's the left wing hoax, and that it's been a way for online grifters simply to make money off of adverts

on the websites. We're going to get into the intricacies of what Q and on is and isn't what the followers believe in trying to wrap our heads around the confusing Q map, and I'm going to try and attempt to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding Q and On. Now, for me, this is something a little bit different because primarily I'm what you might call a war report. I've spent the last seven years working from various frontline battles

across the world. I've reported from Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Southeast Turkey, Palestine, all over the place, and I currently run my own grassroots conflict journalism platform called popular Front. But as one as the war stuff, I've always been very online, spending hours and hours on obscure message boards in Internet rabbit holes and looking into the proliferation of conspiracy theories. I know a bit, but I definitely need help with all the Q and on stuff, so I've recruited Sarah Hightower

to assist with research. She's too shy to admit it out in the open, but Sarah Hightower is one of the best researchers of online extremism in America. She's completely self taught, and in my opinion, understands Q and On better than any of the academics and the welfared extremism

experts working as talking heads for TV news. She cares deeply for the people caught up in this, and after years recreationally online in some of the most fringe parts of the Internet, Sarah effectively speaks the language fluently as I do. She thinks it's incredibly important to shine a light on who actually is behind Q and on, whoever

the hell it is. They've been lying to people, manipulating people, radicalizing people, and tearing families apart for like two years unchecked, So I think finding out who it is, who it was, and who it has been is very important because there's got to be some accountability. She's very eccentric, a bit of a web and it's kind of weird, and I don't say that in a bad way. I think that's what makes her so good. Sarah has also seen firsthand

the effects of Q and On. Early on mid to I had a friend of mine her parents stopped talking to her in real life, so she reached out to me and she said, Hey, do you think this Q and on thing is occult? And I was like, what are you talking about and she started explaining that like her parents had started reading these things called Q drops because apparently someone in the government with like a special

clearance was sending these super secret messages. And she said that her parents had stopped talking to her and that her stepdad, I think, just spent all of his time watching Q tubers. I was like, what is a Q tube? And so that's how I learned about it, and then I tried to help her with her family, and that's when I was like, oh, this is this is actually like a court called, isn't it? And it is so clearly we're both critical of Q and on. Sarah thinks it's some kind of cult. I think it's a bit

of a madness. But to give the listeners an idea of what direction I'm taking with this investigation, it's worth knowing now that I am not a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I am not a supporter of Donald Trump or any of the others you've probably noticed British and whilst I'm not a particular fan of any politicianal government, I don't really have a dog in this race. I am not a political but I'm just not are interested in the shrill partisan politics that have seemingly taken over in the US.

That's what it looks like over here across the pond. Of course, a lot of people say, what do you know, You're British? Forget about that, don't worry. This is about the Q and On investigation. Why I am interested in is how Q and on grew so huge so quickly, and who's actually behind this. This podcast is not trying to mark, demonize, or laugh at Q and On believers directly.

What we are trying to do is lay out why anyone that's involved in Q and On, is Q and On curious or has a family member set adrift with this conspiracy, why they should consider rethinking their positions that and to simply report on our findings whilst looking into the true identity of Q. We're not going to scream at you, tell you're insane or glow, but we are going to point out with evidence why we think Q

and On is a complete hoax. First things first, for anyone who's out there still saying, what the funk even his Q and On, let's tackle that bit to begin with. Now. Personally, I would describe T and on as the largest somewhat

decentralized online conspiracy community on Earth right now. As I mentioned at the start, the followers believe that the Donald Trump administration will bring upon a new political age where Democrats are hanged for treason, leftists around it up and imprisoned, and a political deep state trying to rule America from within will be defeated by Trump and Q. They think Q is a high level political operative within the circles

of the White House. They think that he's chosen image boards such as four chan and h chan to secretly relay information about the aforementioned plan to wreck the deep State. Now, I know that sounds outlandish, but remember hundreds of thousands of people across the world believe in this now, and big political figures in America have been openly speaking about que as if it's a normal thing. The messages that Q posts are known as que drops and are often cryptic.

They predict things that never happened and availed in this strange speak of a misdirection. Now, it might sound a bit outlandish and kind of strange, but all of this was incubated in the world of online image boards. You might have heard of them, the chance four chan, h

and etcetera. Let's scale back a bit to explain what these actually are and how they became the battleground for Q now, I would describe these image boards as, arguably, for better or worse, the last bastions of the early wild West version of the Internet that many of us grew up with. I'm thirty years old. I spent a lot of time as about fourteen fifteen, even younger on the Internet before all the kind of rules came in, before social media relatic over, and you know it was,

it was a much more fun time. Um. But if you've never seen one of these image boards before, it's kind of an anonymous Internet bulletin board where you can chat as well, so users will post up topics based on their own interests. Each post needs to be started with an image. Replies create a thread which is eventually deleted. Nothing is archived on the actual image board itself. And trust me, fortune is big and very influential on Internet culture,

even if you've never heard of it before. With around twenty two million unique visitors a month, four chan is the most well known and most infamous image board. It was first launched in October two thousand and three by American programmer Christopher Pool, also known as Moot. Moot, ran four channel for eleven years before stepping down to go work for Google. Fortune began as a place to share anime images, and it quickly built its own online culture,

almost indecipherable to people not familiar with it. Many memes, internet raids, and historic online pranks were founded on the boards of four Chan. In recent years, though, four Chan became known as a place that incubated the new Old Right in the US, it was linked with scandal after scandal, as school shooters, Nazi terrorists, and murderers all began posting up on four Chan. Despite this, most of the boards

are actually completely harmless. For example, there's a board for origami, there's a board for Pokemon, cooking the i y. It's all there. It's not all bad. The oddity of the chance, though, is that all these running tandem with boards that promote far right agendas, sexual abuse and anime a porn. Now. I know that sounds outlandish, but remember hundreds of thousands of people across the world believe in this now, and big political figures in America have been openly speaking about

que as if it's a normal thing. Trump's regular interaction with Q and On followers on Twitter is another thing that gives them belief that this is all real. For example, in July, he retweeted fourteen tweets from an account supporting Q and On. Now, obviously Trump isn't going to look at the bios and the accounts of the people he retweets. He probably should seem as he's the president, but he isn't going to do that. Q and On followers don't

see it as a coincidence. They think it's him saying yeah, I'm with you, and that adds more gravity to the messages that Q puts out online. These messages that Q posts are known as Q drops. They predict things that never happen and availed in this strange speak of a misdirection. Q and Ons think this is all part of the plan, though for d Chess at its most intelligent, oh when.

There's also a large helping of deep state pedophile theories to Q and On, some of which are based in the truth of Jeffrey Epstein's horrific elitist pedophile crimes, but most of which are based on complete fantasy and rampant speculation. For example, I was watching a prominent Q and on YouTuber a while ago, and he said that him and many other Q and on followers believe that there's literally a video of Hillary Clinton executing a child, cutting off

the child's face and wearing it as a mask. Somehow such a video is actually never been released to a seen yet the Q and on's are adamant that it exists. It's deeply disturbing stuff at times. Now, that's my basic explanation of Q and on and the various facets to what they believe. But let's hear from Travis view. Travis is part of Q and on, Anonymous, a podcast that

spent years looking into Q and It's different ideas. I was rabit as both a very sort of complex meta conspiracy theory that kind of connects every other conspiracy theory under its broad kind of umbrella. And also they kind of a community of of people who believe in this particular extremist worldview. I mean, the broad narrative adheres to

a lot of classic New World Order conspiracy theories. They believe that the world controlled by this satanic cabal pedophiles who hold all the lever's power, including entertainment media and politicians, And they further believe that that that this cabal with continued indefinitely, were not for the election of Donald Trump. They believe that Trump, uh, you know, knows all about the cabal. In some instances, they believe that Trump has been planning for decades to assume the presidency to help

take down take down this cabal. And they further believe that you know, Trump is uh you know, with the help of this high level group of military intelligence officials known as Q Team, is send the outcoded messages about

the secret operation on these image boards. Travis has done so much work in too q and On exposing the many holes in their theories that he's actually become a kind of enemy of the movement that often tweet about him angrily and take the piss out of him and his colleagues on YouTube videos all the rest of it. They don't like him now. Travis thinks that q and on account has changed hands several times from its inception

on four Chan in two now. You know, even even if we we are kind of shaky on the details of who exactly was the original cue poster and who is now the the author of the que raps, I do not think it's the same person. The way that Q and on followers determined what is and isn't a que drop, as in, was it from que? Was it someone pretending to be him is by using something called a trip code. Will go deeper into that in a later episode, but essentially, a trip code allows an anonymous

user to be semi identified online. Q and On's checked the Q trip code and boom to them, they know it's him. The Q and on trip code has changed once or twice, and there's other people in the Q team's sphere of influence that have different trip codes determining their roles. For example, many Q and ons think another poster called Q plus is Donald Trump himself. Yeah, they

really think that he's out there doing that. One and on YouTuber called Craig Mason I watched has said it's completely obvious that Q plus is Trump because he wants kind of sort of made this Q and A plus symbol in the air at one of his events whilst pointing to someone in the crowd. Um, yeah, it's it's weird that Travis of you is not convinced. I mean, yeah, Trump does this thing at rallies where he points at people where he points out a group of people by

waving his finger in the air. Uh, and and he got So the QUA community got got the idea of um, they that this is a secret signal to the Q and that community. I mean, I don't see it. It looks like a circle to me. Yeah, it looks more like a circle. Yeah. Yeah, but but it Yeah, they just got into the got into this. Uh, this this idea that like basically every gesture, every sort of subtle sign that Trump gives off is somehow validating to their

world view. So as you see. The thing about Q and on that has helped some of the wild theories grow is that it doesn't take a lot for believers to see confirmation in the real world. So they'll see a Q post and then often shoehorn in an offline event such as a throwaway typo in a tweet or a hand gesture from Trump to prove that Q is who they claim it to be. After all, Q often says there are no coincidences, so then the followers think, yeah,

that's not a coincidence that was meant for us. It's kind of like if you look at panned war paper long enough, you'll see a face in it. The face isn't meant to be there, It isn't really there, but somehow you can see it. It's the same kind of thing you catch my drift. So this all ties back into the image boards being the place where Q speaks. They have a culture of mystery and far fetched ideas

that are often taken seriously. Even through a hail of cynicism and people throwing insults at the original poster, people do still often take a lot of what is going out there seriously, even if it seems like everybody is telling them to go funk themselves. Now, you might be thinking that four chan hardly seems like a place where you'd expect a highly intelligent White House insider to go to to spread information that would ultimately help save America.

According to the two followers, at least, what's more unusual is that q quickly immigrated to an even darker image board, h Chan. H chan is like four chan's even more fucked up evil isn't like for cha, and it had a similar set up with the image board and what have you, but it devolved into something even worse. Specifically, it became a place for anonymous users to discuss the sharing of child abuse images pedophiles were actively posting on h h and before it was removed from the Internet

by its web hosting provider. It's now called a coon, but we'll get onto that in another episode. Will also speak about the history of h chan and how it became at the way it is, But first let's hear from Hun's creator, Frederick Brennan. I had kind of always been involved in the like alternate four chan universe. There's all these small image boards that don't really get any media attention or they're not really noticed outside, like very

kind of people that are into internet culture. You know, you have like seven chan, four chan, so you get like all of these small sites. So, uh, I was basically like a web developer, and my day job was doing just freelance web development. And since I was already so into image boards, I became kind of friends with every image board admin. You know, at the time, I don't want to toot my own horn, but they knew

that I was kind of a good programmer. Now, despite what I told you about h and just before Frederick started speaking there, keep in mind that Frederick Brennan didn't create h h and for pedophiles, and he is no longer in control of it. The Watkins family took the image board over in. Watkins will be mentioned a lot throughout this series later on, but for now keep that

name in your head. H and basically started after I had a mushroom trip and uh, I just thought it would be really cool to have like this site that was like read it and watching and combined. But I didn't have any visions in the beginning. I didn't think it was ever going to be popular. So let's back up a second and ask the question you all might

be wondering. Why the fuck would Q and on a movement so determined to tear down a political deep state with links to a supposed child sex trafficking cabal, except that its leader drop his leaked info on a website that allows pedos to communicate freely with each other. It makes no sense. It would be like having an environmentalist give a speech at a shell oil conference or something. But if you ask Q and On's they'll tell you that it's all simply part of the plan, one of

their many mantras. And even though they wouldn't say this, perhaps the plan from the outside at least looks simply to be a way for them to achieve their political utopia by any means necessary. Any failed predict chin can be explained away with the plan. A clear fake post

becomes a clever red herring with the plan. When Q posted his first ever drop on four chan on October seventeen, saying Hillary Clinton will be arrested between seven forty five am to eight thirty a m e s t. On Monday the morning on October thirteen, and it didn't happen. That was all part of the plan. To Hillary was not arrested, None of that happened. But to Q and On, it doesn't matter. They can explain away anything in this sense.

As Sarah said earlier, Q and On has become cult like in some way, like most conspiracy theories, and arguably with most cults, there is a final end game for Q and On. It's the so called plan that we've mentioned. I asked Travis's view about this. I've never really seen them explicitly point out what the plan is. Now. I know they have the idea of getting everybody out and trying everybody for treason and hanging them um, but that

is not a plan. That's like a goal, right, I mean, is there any indication to what they actually think the plan is? No, I no, No. This is the funniest part. The plan that they're trusting is secret um so so, so they don't know what the plan is, but there they know they have to trust it because they think it's in like I said, they think it's in Trump's hands.

They think it's in military intelligence hands. They don't know what the plan is, but they they're very convinced that there is a plan and it's going to result in, like you said, the the executions that they want, the the sort of return to the world that they want to see, I mean love them really believe that there's going to be utopia. They think there are hidden cures to cancer and other diseases that will be revealed. They think that this this fake law called the SARA is

going to get past and make everyone rich. Uh. They think you know that, you know that all the everyone will kind of real eyes that they were rail along and all their bluepilled NORMI lib friends will come crawling to them and saying I was so wrong and I'm so sorry, You're so smart. Uh. You know, they really think that the world's can be a better place. But because of this plan, so they trust it even though

they don't know where it is really. So that is Q and on Internet image boards, Donald Trump, conspiracy theories, and blind faith, all meeting under the same umbrella, radicalizing each other further and following an anonymous leader online. It's potentially quite dangerous. Just remember the man in the armored vehicle on the Hoover Dam Bridge. And the run up to the US election, Q and on is being promoted

more and more. The followers thing they're going to make America great again again and have been spreading increasingly more erratic conspiracies about election night. As a result, Facebook has just banned all talk of Q and on on its platform after allowing it to flourish for years. This will likely push Q and on deeper underground, perhaps further increasing its radicalization. I think it's more important now than ever to truly dig up the ground and show who's the

controller behind the Q and on conspiracy theory. In the next episode, we're going to look into the theory that Q and on is a prank led by a whole group of people supposed left wing activists. Due Clearance is brought to you by I Heart Radio and co dat Our Media. I'm Jake Hanrahan. You can find me online at Jake Underscore hand Rahan. That's h A N A h A M. This episode was produced by myself with

fact checking by Sarah Hightower. The music is by Sam Black and the sound levels were mixed by Thomas Griffin at Splicing Block, sat In