Fellow conspiracy realists travel back with us in twenty twenty. During this classic episode, taking place during time of great unrest is now just called the COVID pandemic, we asked ourselves, what if the stories and narratives you hear in mainstream media aren't the entire truth.
What if there's.
Something else going on? This is the story of q Anon.
Who is q who are q Yeah? And what if there's something else going on? A secret war between a shadowy cabal and a small group of brave, outnumbered good guys fighting back against their insidious plans for world domination. That's what QAnon folks seem to think. Let's roll the tape.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nola.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decad Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. This is the first episode we are recording in what the calendars call twenty twenty. So if you're listening to this, congratulations you've made it at least to January of that month.
Good for you.
Wait a go, you did a thing.
We all did it. We're all here.
We are here in some shape or form. I'm already enjoying the heck out out of twenty twenty.
Yeah.
Yeah, well mainly I don't know, just personal choice. I decided I wasn't gonna drink it all in January. It's the thing people do, the dry January, Dryuary. Yeah, and I've gotten so much done in six days, it's crazy. I redecorated my whole house, been working on music again. I've been just you know, be more present with my kid. Not that I'm some kind of crazy alcoholic, but it's easy to forget about the things that actually make you
happy when maybe work is a little stressful. You yes, you'd rather just like have a couple of drinks with friends instead. I've been like doing, you know, playing board games and stuff, and it's great. Now friends come over to my house and we play NERD games together.
That's amazing, Noel, And I'm so proud of you for not letting the current news cycle cause you to go back to the drink.
I don't know what you're talking about. I've also chosen to give up watching television, giving up with the news. Please enlighten me.
Oh, nothing, just something to do with this country that we've talked about on this show numerous times that is surrounded on all sides by people that may want to invade for various reasons. And you know there's just almost a hot war between our country and that country occurs invade us, Matt, No, no, anyway, Ben, how you doing good? You good with a whole Iran situation.
Well, the reason is to congratulations to everyone for making it to January of twenty twenty. It's because we are very much in a what it feels like it, day by day, week by week estimate of the future, which may change precipitously. Of course, it's often said, at least by me, that the world is ending for someone somewhere every day. But you know, Australia is burning down the ocean acidification that you warned me about years ago. Matt's
that's definitely in play. I have also, I have also not gone completely dry, but I've been drinking a lot less, just because I feel like I need to be aware and alert at all times. Relaxation feels very twenty nineteen for me.
Oh man, I swear to god, the news cycle is starting to feel like that movie Children of Men, you know, like it's very much like a near future dystopia thing that we're starting to fall into a little bit. I'm not being super hyper about that. It really if you just take a minute, listen to the radio, watch TV. Everything's on fire. It's crazy.
Yeah, Well, let me tell you this and then we'll I agree, let me tell you this just here. I'll share this in the room. And this is the first time I'm talking about this. Uh, and I'm speaking to you. Person who called ben Nole Paul. We got a really really wonderful series of calls on our hotline over like right after the New year. Occurred from a gentleman who told of how he he knew he had to quit heroin and the only way he was going to do it was to get a trusted friend and lock himself
in a place for you know, weeks on end. And while he was doing that, he found our podcast and he said, because the time goes by so excruciatingly slowly during those times. Getting to have our pod cast gave him a place to it gave him a group of people essentially with whom to commune without having any kind of fear of falling back, right, And he said he's and he ended up getting through the entire show, and he just thanked us on the phone for for just existing and for talking.
Congratulations, man, We're glad you're here, right.
Yeah, Man, isn't that amazing? It's incredible. He actually had reached out on Instagram or something, he said he did. Yeah, but this is an update. That's that's that's new. Well, we'll really really wonderful.
We'll share it together just so everyone knows who was listening to this first time we've actually hung out all together in a while. But just want to put that out there. The world, as scary as it seems, as bad as the news seems, as crazy as the stuff we're about to talk about, is in the end, we have each other no, right.
Right, And that's why I wasn't joking when I said my twenty is off to a really nice start. I'm feeling pretty positive about things overall, despite the news cycle and how you know, eminently weird things are getting. I mean, at the end of the day, all we have our friends, our loved ones, our families, and the little things that we have to occupy our minds with to keep from going completely insane.
So this is the first episode we're recording in twenty twenty, hopefully not the last. But you know, you know how the nature of life is. It's like Ella Musk recently said, it's a video game where the graphics are amazing, the tutorials are too long. The problem with life is that we're all working live right, no one really in charge.
There's not really a plan or is there, Because today we are diving into one of the strangest, most controversial conspiracy stories of the aughts, which I mean the recent aughts, the twenty tens and so on. This is something that many of our fellow listeners have written to us about or communicated intro in to us via some platform or another. As as always, we want to explore these ideas with with with an emphasis on critical thinking and an emphasis
on the facts versus rumors, et cetera, et cetera. If this is your first rodeo, you'll see what we mean very quickly. And again, hopefully it's not your last rodeo. You've heard the name before. You may have even accidentally or purposely found yourself embroiled in a conversation about this thing. But what exactly is q A noon, why has it become a focal point for a certain genre of conspiracy literature, and most importantly, what sort of claims do q A
non supporters make? If you are someone like like many of us listening, who enjoys a bit of googling while you're while you're listening to the podcast, take note that q ANN is spelled capital Q capital ann. Anyhow, here are the facts.
So to begin this story, we have to jump back to twenty seventeen, October twenty eighth of that year, and we have to go to a place called four chan, a message board, and within that there is a channel called poll pol politics. And on that date, October twenty eighth, twenty seventeen, there is a person, a user ostensibly anonymous, that had the name q Clearance Patriot. And this user started popping up on that slash pol that message board and hoo buddy, oh yeah, we're not even going to
get to the message yet. Let's just let's explain some of this.
Yeah, let's take a step back.
So four Chan, Okay, you've heard about it.
Yeah, it's like the armpit of the internet more more or less. Well, okay, okay, it was once like not as bad as it has become, but it is certainly gained a reputation for becoming a place where people can anonymously spout pretty much whatever.
They want, as they say in Star Wars, a hive of scum and villainy. That's what it's been accused of being in mainstream media.
It's I would just sput out there and we're going to talk about this. It is one of the places that the Internet provides where you can literally say whatever you want anonymously, right right.
One of my old colleagues called it one of the best arguments against free speech in the modern era. Four Chan is, as you said, an anonymous English language website or image board. It was created in two thousand and three by a guy named Christopher Poole going under the name mootot. You can hear a pretty great summation of the origin and evolution of four chan on our pure podcast Tech Stuff by Jonathan Strickland. So you won't get
two into the weeds here. Four Chan was originally, as of two thousand and three, supposed to be a digital space wherein anonymous posters could talk about anime and post images related to anime. But it expanded and ad mission creep as many things do, and today it's home to message boards on any number of topics video games, music, politics, sports, et cetera, et cetera, including some patently disturbing content. The thing about four chan is, unlike a lot of similar
message boards, you cannot really register. You post anonymously. Threads with recent replies get bumped to the top of the board, and then old threads they get less and less attention or automatically deleted as new ones appear. It's also huge.
It's a big quick question for you guys as being a bit of a four Chan nube. I mean, I know a decent amount about it, but I've never really interacted with it. Is what makes it different from say Reddit, Like is it just less moderated or is it a little more of a free for all?
Are there are moderators on four Chan? But Reddit requires if you want to post on Reddit, you have to have a registered name there.
You go, so it's the anonymity that really sets it apart, right, got it? So back to its size, It's true, it's it's massive. Each month the site receives twenty two to twenty seven million unique visitors, and every day users generate around eight hundred thousand new posts. And much like Reddit, you have groups with abbreviations like forward slash pol forward slash which is the politically incorrect group, and that was starting.
Yeah, I would just have to say I incorrectly called it politics because in my brain I just am in Reddit world. So apologies, but it's still beans the same. Yeah, I know, I just know. Don't don't hurt us?
Okay, continue, but again, don't I don't think that. I think that's a good point, Matt, because I do feel like Reddit versus Fortune four Chan is inherently a little more fringy then Reddit. It seems to me, just as an outsider, but correct me if I'm wrong.
The fringe doth exist everywhere.
That's very true. It seems like it's a little more nurtured by the fact that you're able to post anonymously. For sure. It was essentially a reboot of four chan's news board new Slash new which had been deleted in January twenty eleven because of flagrant racism.
Of a specific type as well, which was a white supremacist type, far far right wing kind of racism. So let's put that info to the side just for now. All you need to remember is Pole exists as troubled history. It's been repeatedly cited as a hub for racism, sexism, neo Nazi ideology, and so on.
You mean politically incorrect stuff, guys, right, And let's also remember that you or Q a non as we explore the evolution here, also became known as the Storm or the Great Awakening.
And the reason why is, oddly enough, it is clearly traceable to a single incident in involving what many people thought to be an offhand, sort of throwaway remark by the current president of the United States.
So let's just go back. October twenty eighth is when Q clearance patriot shows up. Correct. October twenty eighth, twenty seventeen, now twenty three days prior to that. On October fifth, twenty seventeen, President Trump he made some comments while he was hanging out in front of a bunch of reporters. Yeah, they're taking a publicity photo with a ton of high level military officials. They had a special gathering. They were
taking this photo and they're all standing around. Several people, well you know, it's mostly photographers, but several are running video and there's video of this you can watch right now. This is a quote from President Trump. Do you guys know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm?
What what storm, mister President on Iran? Or isis? Or what what's the storm?
We've got the worlds As a continuing the quote, we've got the world's great military people in this room. I will tell you that we're gonna have a great meeting. Thank you all for coming.
What storm, mister president.
You'll find out now just think about that.
That's it.
That's all it was. But it was in it's a little longer than that. We're paraphrasing here, but that is. Those are the exact quotes. This maybe is the calm before the storm. And oh you'll find out when he's asked what it is. It was a very vague statement. And here's the deal that we need to kind of note here. So in the context in October early October twenty seventeen. They were all a lot of rumors floating around.
There were people talking in Washington, DC quite extensively about whether or not the Iran nuclear Deal, which was negotiated by President Trump's predecessor, President Obama, was on the table as possibly being changed or altered or pulled out of or there was there were rumors that something was going to change there with regards to Iran.
Right, Yeah, yeah, that perhaps the administration at the time would decertify or pull out of the nuclear deal.
Yes, And he's in a room full of the top military officials who would be concerned about that and or you know, have something to say.
But also to be fair, something like you'll find out is, you know, it's not a declaration of policy at all.
He's kind of fond of making those little wink wink, nudge nudge kind of statements and a feeling like there's you know, something big or at play than is on the surface.
It's a you know what it is, it's a statement that makes you come back after the commercial break. That's right, Does that make sense? Like it totally speaks to his his.
Uh, yeah, he's definitely you know, from his experience working in television. He's got, he knows how to he knows how to have a cliffhanger.
It's also a bit of a it's it's also a bit of a way to end a conversation. You know, we have to I have to go. Yes, I have a pretty busy schedule, just to be absolutely fair. And this this gained uh, some some weight, some gravity online in like a more serious version of cofefe, you know. So it does represent a theme that we see pretty often,
which is it made people uncertain. To the point you guys are making, there was a cliffhanger, but there wasn't really a follow up at least on the president's end at that point.
That's right, and the connection we're about to draw as well could be entirely coincidental. Doesn't want to put that out there right now.
So in this case, that quotation, that single that single dialogue seems to have not just bread speculation, but inspired what is nowadays referred to an internet shorthand as q or q andon. So what exactly is QAnon saying.
Here, mister president? What is q on saying?
You'll find out.
After a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. So once the quote is out there, Q Clearance Patriot, the nickname, by the way, is a reference to Q level security clearance, which is a real thing in the Department of Energy. It's the equivalent of top secret way. Q Clearance Patriot begins posting, and we have the text of the first post made by the entity claiming to be Q Clearance Patriot. We can read it to you. We want to note that
it may feel a little bit obtuse. N G in the following message stands for National Guard and HRC stands for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run passport approved to be flagged effective ten thirty at twelve oh one am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur. US MS will conduct the operation while MNG activated proof check, locate an NG member and ask if activated for duty ten thirty across most major cities. I don't think we explained MS.
Yeah, US Marines. So the idea here is that Hillary Clinton is going to be extra guided and that somewhere yeah, and then multiple countries are girding up their security to prevent this person from getting successfully to another country or a non extradition treaty country, that the passport will be
flagged rendered invalid. That's what that means. That there will be massive riots that are heavily implied to be planned, you know, kind of AstroTurf riots, so not the actual people rising up, and that others, which would people would later say were other democratic and democratic politicians leaders so on, that they would be fleeing the US, and that marines would conduct this mass arrest or this culling starrywhen Clinton, and that the National Guard will be activated to be
kind of like the backup the reserves.
So what's the implication here? The implication is that a lot of high level democrats are about to be rounded up and arrest and arrested and potentially indicted.
For what, well, for the many crimes though for the many, many crimes. That's that's the implication. But this is just the first post. This is the first of what would later be called breadcrumbs. And the thing is that Q would claim access to secret information and followed up with another post a few a few hours later, just hours later, and.
Because he's again he's this is on he's warning about ten twenty he's posting on ten twenty.
Eight rights right, which we'll see as a pattern.
Uh huh.
And so Q in his next post writes a little bit more coherently, but the language is replete with what appear to be coded phrases. So Q is saying that Clinton has already been detained by authorities and that Donald Trump was aware of this, knew that criminal rogue elements, including Clinton, had to be arrested. And then he also references several other people popular in conspiracy theories, such as
the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. You know, regardless of what you feel about the specifics of the allegations about against George Soros, we would all agree billionaire philanthropists are potentially supervillains just in general, we have the capacity to be so.
So, do you want to read an example of one of these posts? Yeah? No, one, I mean, just to give us a little more.
And then we can This one's a little juicier too.
Yeah. So this is again made on the twenty eighth of October twenty seventeen. Here it goes, you ready, mockingbird HRC detained not arrested yet? Where is Huma follow Huma and that, of course is Huma Abadeen that we've talked about before in this show, with the emails in particular and as well as with reference to her former husband. I want to say, here we go, let's continue. This has nothing to do with Russia yet. Why does Potis
surround himself with generals? What is military intelligence? What is military intelligence? Guys? Okay, let's continue. Why go around the three letter agencies?
This reads like a very strange poem.
Yes, what Supreme Court case allows for the use of m I versus Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has the ultimate authority over our branches of military without approval conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? What is the military code? Where is AW being held? Why AW?
Is that?
Anthony Wiener? No? Is that Andrew.
The problem?
But who knows?
Right?
Potis will not go on TV to address nation? Potis must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. Potis knew removing critical rogue elements as a first step. Was this central to free and pass legislation? Who has access to everything classified? Do you believe HRC Soros, Obama et cetera have more power than Trump fantasy. Whoever controls the Office of the Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a moment they Democrats and Republicans would lose control. This is
not RVD battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently? Why would he place all his funds in a rc RC anyone rent control? Now I'm just kidding. I don't know what RC is. Mockingbird ten thirty seventeen, God bless fellow patriots.
Is that a Hunger Games references? That's the mocking Oh yeah, so what's mockingbird? This is?
This is first off, this is a pure sugar rush, right for some pupil on fourtchan, this is candy now. I also, I was reading this when this came out, and I got so into it. I thought, you know, I don't care if it's real, because we'll get to it.
There's a problem.
There's a problem with identity. You know, it's like this, even if it's just mimetic. You know, people who have enough knowledge of the reference points here can begin to dive down the rabbit hole. So for people who already deep into the world of conspiracy, especially those trending toward the far right, fringe stuff. It's called they they were
elated and probably no small part terrified Operation Mockingbird. You're askmout, Well, it's a reference to a real life CIA program to blackmail journalists and control propaganda narrators, and that that thing actually happened. And it is true that the laws preventing the legal dissemination of US propaganda in the domestic sphere have been rescinded.
Yeah, it's free reign, baby, what a time.
And this this also references, like you said, Matt, it references the idea that Huma Aberdeen, the former Clinton staffer, was secretly working for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has the nicest way it says, it has not been proven true.
Yeah, and well, just referencing Huma is kind of one of those triggers at that time, at least in twenty seventeen, and a little prior to that, a trigger word that's like and again it's just this, like you said, this is candy, Ben, where all of these little things, these little references just can send you down a rabbit hole. A single one of them could. And this is basically arming you with a handful of skittles. You're so right
about that reference. But okay, and here's the deal with a post like this, It's not just a single post. It exists within, you know, this ecosystem of everybody else being able to ask a question like and again you're kind of answering all of these questions because this is all questions, almost almost ninety percent questions that are being raised here in this post.
Right, but like leading questions kind of too.
Right, Well yeah, but it's also it's just it's it's fairly odd but intriguing. Right, But what happened was this started a movement.
Right, yeah, so Q the poster right is different from the group to a nod yes, which is the supporters of this idea later grew into what would be known as the Storm or the Great Awakening. And this this grew from fertile soil. Remember this follows on the heels of things like Pizzagate, wherein where various folks were arguing, based on some emails, that there was a secret cabal of child abusers, a child abuse ring that was connected to Hillary Clinton, that was operating out of a basement
in a pizza chain. Problem being the actual pizza restaurant does not have a basement.
But just the same. A believer of that particular conspiracy theory, a guy by the name of Edgar Madison Welch went into this pizza place, very popular political pizza hangout, and supposed child sex dungeon. He went in there and shot the place up. He didn't like kill anybody, but he shut the lock off of a I believe it was a door that was meant to lead down into the secret basement, but there was no evidence of this ever uncovered.
Yeah, went to a closet actually, yeah, where he damaged the computer.
It is interesting how we don't have to get into it too deeply, but Pizzagate, the way it evolved, we were looking at it very closely as it was evolving, and for it to focus on that one pizza restaurant that we're not aiming here. By the way, we know the name of it, we're not naming it here just in case, just for whatever reason, people feel that you
how you may feel. But it was odd that these emails that were all you know, leaked from it was from the Hillary Clinton email breach and leak that came out. Most of the people on those chains were Democrats, not all of them, but most of them or high level officials or assistance too high level officials, and the stuff that was construed or misconstrued or you know, taken from those emails. There was some odd stuff in there, and I would be the first to say there was definitely
some odd stuff in there. But you can see it's such a good example of how you get a little bit of information or maybe a tiny peek into a window or a flashlight's view in the darkness, and that's all you see, and then you're assuming what is on the other side that you can't see. That's we're kind of going down that path already with just what QAnon has said or with what q Clearance Patriot is.
And we all already see the emphasis on creating connective tissue, yes, on discerning and following and then ultimately predicting a pattern an order of operations. But before we get to that, you know, this is nested like Matroskdal's here. But before we get to that, there's a problem of identity. Remember how earlier we noted the strong anonymity on four Chan. Q was aware of this and so attempted to provide
proof of his or her or their claims. They posted images you can see online that some redditors, especially on the our Conspiracy subreddit, believed confirmed Q was physically present on Air Force one and thus was receiving this information from none other than the current commander in chief, and some followers started to argue about the true identity of Q. You would see all kinds of all kinds of allegations.
Probably the most out there were that first Donald Trump or Trump Junior were themselves Q, or that JFK Jr. Faked his death to get away from the Deep State and is himself.
Q to tell the truth about the Deep State.
But now that we've set up all this background and told you how the story began, what the origin point was, and you can see a little bit about the explosive growth, we have to ask ourselves what is q anon saying? What are the claims? We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor, and we're back, maybe a little bit of a movie voice. In a world controlled by cannibals, Satan worshipers, elite child abusers, only one man has the
I don't know, I'm falling off. Only one person. There's an oubie Wan who is the only hope in this story, and it's it is President Trump in this In this narrative, the fact that Trump was formerly a Democrat and then later a Republican is seen as proof that he belongs to neither party, who are of course, both painted as
puppets on the hands of global elite. And Trump is fighting an internal war, according again to QAnon, and has to be protected by the military because the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, the rest of the alphabet soup has all been compromised.
And yeah, compromised, and largely it's difficult to move those powers, like the individuals that have power in those institutions, right right, even though you've seen him cycle through several sure.
Yeah, yeah, and you've seen the narrative change too, But he's saying, yes, that the alphabet souperintelligence agencies, they're all
Cerosian for lack of a better word. And then going back to this question which you asked, No about the format, because q's postings often do take that cryptic question format, and so people who follow this Q and honors following this will say that each question is some sort of hint or a clue or a riddle containing some hidden truth about the real nature of global governance, and that astute minds can divine the meaning behind these postings.
For me, it's almost like a puzzle game that if you can answer one of the questions, then you can and then you answer the next one, and then you realize how those are connected, and then it just goes down like.
One. Yeah right, but like there's no rhyme or reason to it. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm being abduced here. Actually that's the word you use, Ben, I think quite astutely when you're talking about the way some of these posts read. And I think I said some of them came off as leading questions. Some of them do, like, for example, who has ultimate authority over our branches of military?
Who approves conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? I mean, that's sort of trying to push you to think a thing. And some of them are super open ended. So if there's a puzzle here, where's the solution? It seems like a lot of projection going on.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's they're they're called breadcrumbs because there's ought to be these tidbits of information, right, and they're forming a trail that picture. You know, one of my favorite sunny in Philadelphia moments when Charlie Day is obsessed with the discovery of Pepe Lopez, remember, and he's standing there and he's like chain smoking and pointing to his conspiracy board. I think you're absolutely right here in that. It reminds me a little bit of people who claim
to have interpreted Nostradamis. You know, there's a bit of tea leaf reading that comes into this.
You know, there was.
Without without verification or more explicit statements by Q itself. Even assuming that we could prove Q s Q. You can make those initials mean anything you want. Sure, RC could be rent control. It could also be la right, it could also be control. It could be robocow, you know, or yeah, could be straight up. I don't know why I went over the cop for the cow. I'm very well aware of the yaz well, but you see what I'm saying.
I see exactly what you're saying. And this kind of writing, and what it does is it allows the interpreter, so an end user, somebody who reads it who is loud and influential enough to then say this is what that means, and then that person almost gets more power or is able to translate it in a way that then a massive amount of people believes it has been translated.
Yes, And there's another aspect here which I think if we're thinking critically, we have to be even more skeptical about at this point. There's another aspect wherein some some people who purport to believe in the QAnon stuff will say that they're not just they're not just correctly interpreting the statements they find on four Chan related forums, they're also interpreting the actions of the president, the physical individual, and his own actions that would seem innocuous to mainstream media.
There's this one, for instance, there's this one moment in a meeting where he is sitting next to the vice president and I believe he takes a bottle of Fiji water, drinks it, and then puts it on the floor.
Right.
Yeah, So there.
Were people arguing that this was not just someone handling a water bottle, that this was a nonverbal signal that he was planning to take down a child abuse ring in guess where the Bahamas good close. They're both on the planet Fiji.
Oh okay.
And when we get to that level of subjectivity, it's tough to prove anything, you know, and that's the devilish part about that, because barring a statement from the actual president saying yeah, that's why I did it, or no, oh I just put the water there, you know, there's there's no proof. And then also even if people could just choose to say the guy is line or he's dissembling.
I had said a thing before the first break of the idea of Trump's offhanded statements about the storm the coming storm, that that could well have been a complete coincidence as related to this movement. But I think it's the other way around. Actually, I think this movement hopped on that innocuous ish statement and then created this notion
of the coming reckoning or whatever. I believe. We talked about these high level officials that were corralled and rounded up secretly, and supposedly they've all been fitted with ankle monitors because they're already under indictment secretly. But we have what we can't let anyone know that it's we got to look like it's business as usual, Like no, who's going to stand for that? I don't you know what
I mean? Like the whole We will get more into it, but it's a very flow mixing the whole narrative behind this. There's a lot of pieces that would have to fall into place just so perfectly that just don't make sense in a logistical way.
Yeah, it's not as unreasonable as a flat earth movement, for example, for an extreme example. But it's difficult to discern how all of this could be true at once, and that's one of the structural problems here for being objective. But according to QAnon, the US government has been controlled for decades and decades, maybe more than a century, by a very close knit group of powerful deep state actors,
and they are only part of a larger picture. The world, according to q is controlled by a global ring of cannibalistic, demon worshiping child abusers, a group that is responsible for everything from the assassination of JFK to the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS, to the escalation the continual frequency of domestic mass shootings. And furthermore, they argue that every
single president elected since JFK. Pay attention to that one Democrat or Republican has been a puppet for this cabal, with one notable.
Exception, Donald J. Trump.
Yes, give the man a cigar. Yeah, we're not supposed to smoke cigars. Are you just I never got it. It always felt too Freudian for me. It's like will Will Smith, Welcome to Miami.
Welcome to Miami.
You guys smoke cigars? Wrong?
I guess you're right. No, we shouldn't teach us the ways. I mainly just break mine open and put other things into them. What just kidding, not kidding, I don't know. I don't care anymore. What I do care about is that this is all pretty intensely bonkers but also fascinating because, like you said, Ben, there's so much tea leaf reading
that goes into this. And the way these narratives have been generated by users, not by Q him or herself, that was just kind of the red meat, you know, for the masses to then just go ape over, you know, and just like swarm over the stuff and create what do what the Internet does best, which is generate bonkers conspiracy theories or memes or just you know, baseless claims, which is what most of this, if not all of this, absolutely seems to be.
Well that's the problem too, So to continue with this, The idea is that the president President Trump has been working behind the scenes to expose the deep seat in a carefully orchestrated fashion, and all will soon be revealed. Ultimately, he will send the guilty parties to the quasi black site known as Guantanamo Bay. And if you ask the
true believers, proof of this is all around you. If you have the true believers, then the idea is not whether or not there's proof, but it's why you, a non believer, insist on having your head in the sand.
Yeah, why you can't see it?
Right, Because of course we've got some examples like the Muller Report. Right, it turns out Robert Muller and Donald
Trump are secretly close colleagues. They're behind the scenes allies, and that the Muller Report, while ostensibly investigating Russian interference in the twenty sixteen US election, in what it was in reality was an investigation into this deep state, and that Donald Trump had to performatively cozy up to the Russian state because that gave Muller the ability to investigate the real problem, which was the deep state in the US abroad, which is responsible for everything from Pizzagate to
the twenty seventeen mass shoot in Vegas.
Yeah, well, then you bring in the even more recent stuff with the old Ukraine call with some quidded pro quo and the whistleblowers who came forward and made everyone aware of that, to the impeachment proceedings that have been going on and went on to really to the supporters of q and on. These are just ways for the deep state essentially to fight back against the power that Trump has it just to stimy a little bit his efforts to reveal all of the truths eventually that he's going to reveal.
Right, and this is where we get to the idea of revelation, right, the problem with proof. So first, many claims made by QAnon had an expiration date. This is something that this is something that leads to the downfall of a lot of apocalyptic belief systems right where you know, we see it tail as old as time. There's a charismatic cult leader. And I'm not saying this is what
q is and I'm not saying it's a cult. But in the case of cults, there's a charismatic leader who says, due to some divine revelation or another, I know that the world will end on November third, sixteen forty five.
Get to a cave.
We will be like the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve strike down the unworthy, you know what I mean? And then sure enough, the next day comes and the world keeps spinning on its Mary Mary Sinister way. So what happens here is that many of the claims made by QAnon later it turned out to be demonstrably false. John Podesta was not indicted on November third of twenty seventeen. Huma Abideen was not indicted on November sixth, twenty seventeen.
That we're aware of, that, we're aware.
Of unless they're wearing those secret ankle bracelets.
And then what if they actually were wearing ankle bracelets. Guys, I'm gonna feel so silly, because I genuinely feel like it's silly. I feel like it it's not possible, but I've been surprised before.
I'm gonna be honest and this, you know, I don't want to say too much personal stuff, but this reminds me of something. There is a religious aspect to this, a fervance to it, and this reminds me of you know, hearing about, like to say, which religions, but hearing about specific religions with very specific requirements for behavior. Not just the like don't be a dick stuff that most religions do, but like very specific religions. And I always used to wonder.
I used to think, you know, what if that's the one that's true. What if you die and it turns out that it's just this one specific thing, like it's a myth raism the whole time, that's what it was. And I always thought, you know, if I get to the afterlife, I feel like I'm gonna be one of those people, as little Larry David about him, like, all right, fine, you got me. But just to be fair, your pr stinks.
And those are weirdly specific rules, so weird in fact, that I don't think I'd be comfortable hanging out with the rest of your gang on the other side of the gate. Yeah, there you go, Because I like polyesters.
I was gonna say, you're mixing, you're mixing all that. So it's pretty leviticoush we're talking about, which is a great read. I would recommend it, oh yeah to anyone out there.
But you see, you see what I'm saying like this, The problem here is if you're applying critical thinking of the problem here is in the specificity of the claims, right, because they can be disproven, and this is something that QAnon notices and responds to.
Right.
QAnon has said that these false predictions are necessary because disinformation is necessary. So maybe they're saying, we know that the bad guys, the deep state is also reading this, so we need to get them off the trail the same way, for instance, that in state craft, if you have a compromised source, like a compromised spy source, a compromise communication channel, or a compromised computer network, you never
shut it down. Ideally, you go to a redundancy channel, right, you go to a backup channel, and you keep that other stuff running, and then you just fill it with crap.
Yeah, exactly, and it's incredible before sorry, I just loved the idea.
And then you just fill it with crap. That's true.
That's seriously what you do.
That's beautiful.
Uh So, now we know that this the specificity in terms of the calendar claims. It ended up shooting this concept in the foot for a lot of people, and previous believers became somewhat dissillusion. But we also know that due to the vague nature of those postings and the
sort of zen cone one liner of questions. People who were proponents of this began saying, well, we can explain some of the things that appear to be incorrect by our interpretation, our understanding, our realization of what they're actually saying in these statements, and now it leads us to
an ugly truth. It may sound like we're it may sound like we are for some folks being harsh on the concept of QAnon, But the fact is that the stuff that has been presented as proof, and has indeed been presented as the strongest indication of proof or sand to the story, has just hasn't held up to scrutiny
at this point. Now, if it's wrong, if it turns out that there are people who are wearing ankle monitor bracelets and our or anklets or whatever and are just playing a role in public life until the the I don't know, the pendulum swings or the hammer falls, and they all go to guantanamo. If that is true, then it has been it is being pulled off immaculately. Well, yep, it would be one of the most successful examples of cooperation in the recent history of our species.
You're welcome, right, right, But doing all this behind the scenes, guys, But you're finally gonna let everyone know it was you. Huh that it was not me?
Oh right, classic move.
But I want to talk about how the reason why it feels unbelievable to a lot of people, and I would say somewhat to myself, is because it's trying, or it's attempting or it has been made to be an uber conspiracy, like the reason behind everything. Right, all of the things that are bad that are happening that we're noticing out there are all a part of.
This one thing.
Yeah, that's yeah. Did it just is it like that poem where you know, the reach must exceed the grasp else, what's a heaven for?
Yeah?
It maybe went too big because if we look at the structure of the argument, it did attempt to and does attempt to incorporate more and more things because it is crowdsourced. You know, there are there are people who are getting their own hobby horse in the Q and on conversation, right, and then they're they're pushing that and that may actually contradict things that other people are saying, although they are supposed to be on the same team.
And you know, former supporters have reacted to this by saying Q itself is compromised, and also fairly persuasive arguments that Twitter bots or other bots out of Russia got a hold of the information and mainstreamed it to Twitter, and the president himself does seem to be at times tacitly supporting aspects of the theory is retweeted accounts or statements or statements from accounts that are heavily linked to Q.
Well, and you know, there of course, here we just have to talk about a lot of a lot of people pointing out that at rallies, at political events in the background, you will see quite often Q and On posters or things that are written that appear to be in support of the Q and on theory that is just And then it appears that from an optic standpoint, President Trump hasn't worked to get that out of his you know, political events. But again, how would one actually
do that. There are a lot of things, Yeah, there's a lot in there, and I'm just I'm so sorry.
I want to keep going here really quickly because as someone and I'm going to speak openly here as someone who has dismissed this, at least to a certain extent, I have to acknowledge that the problems, the major problems that are outlined by q Annon, whoever this person is is, or whoever you know, whether or not they're compromised or whatever, the major problems that are outlined there, I know for a fact are real.
Give me an example.
Anyone running in this country for a Democratic or a Republican in part of the two party system, running for president, let's say, or high level position or the Senate. They work on either side of that aisle with the same many times the exact same money powers that help them get there.
Sure we also know that giant corporations contribute equal amounts to both parties. They're hedging their bets depending on who wins, you know, they want to be on the right side of whoever is in power.
I want to go back to something here. There's something else that I think the mainstream media is missing in the story of QAnon, and it is this. They're so busy, you know, harping on the things they're easily dismissible, easily disprovable, but they're not hitting the primary question, which is why I think you're gay at here, Matt. It's this. There is no question that the world of politics operates in two distinct spheres. First, what you the public, are sold,
and second, what happens behind the curtain. We talked about this on the show before. It's pretty obvious there tends to be more to the story than the official narrative states, especially in high stake situations like state level politics. Do you think diplomats of countries who hate each other are not getting together on phone calls and going like, hey man, you know the other guy was kind of unreasonable, but
let's see what we can work on with this together. Yes, And then do you think they're not going to public statements and going like, you know, death to disco or whatever, and then calling the people who run the disco and saying, hey man, you know it's kind of rough here, like could you give me a little let's see what we can work out. You know, there's negotiation there. And the problem here is that they're also ignoring the fact that something like a deep state does exist. It's just not
as monolithic as some theories would have us believe. Is there a group of just one small group of people that runs the world. Probably not. Are there dozens of groups of very powerful people and institutions who feel like they should run the world. Absolutely corporations right, private equity institutions, you know what I mean, very insulated ruling families of one nation or another. These are the things that operate
like the deep states that are talked about here. A deep state is there's a banality.
To evil, right, So follow the money, right, follow.
The money, or follow unelected civil servants who have tremendous power and have their hands on the levers of government and may have their own political agendas. Now I'm not saying they're all out automatically evil. I'm saying that if you listen to this, you can't elect them, and it's very difficult for them to get fired. In any case.
The notion of evil in the situation is kind of a misnomer. I think it's maybe it's greed or it's just kind of control, but it's not necessarily inherently evil by its very nature. It's not trying to rape and pillage and.
Have to throw in there. A lot of this theory has to do with child sex abuse and other abuse that's in there and other young adults. And we have found recently no, no, no, last year. Don't that that stuff is very much real, and powerful people.
Very specific like aberrant, you know, click of powerful people that believe they deserve whatever it is that they want and they're creepy fetishes or whatever that they feel like they are.
Owed are the ones that we've identified. But we've identified.
But I don't think that. I think the notion that all powerful people are inherently like pedophilic sex fiends.
Is absolutely not sure. Yeah, no, absolutely that is not true. That is one hundred percent not true. But like this show does, and as we explore every time, sometimes it is true.
The UK, the Franklin scandal, the Epstein scandal, Belgium, it's just four Yeah, so this is true, but it's also it's it is you know, it works really well as red meat to motivate people because it's something that it's something that no decent human being would somehow justify, you know what I mean. Anybody who supported that is a bad person and also one other thing. So so the
truth is disturbing, right, this didn't come from nothing. There are people that you will never meet, that you will never elect, who control more aspects of your life and the globe than any one person or one institution should However, without solid proof, we also can't blame critics who say that q itself was just an Internet troll stringing people along for the lulls. You remember lulls, Matt.
I remember the lulls. I got so many lulls, oh man, and I did most everything for them.
So there we are. This is the story of QAnon so far, just a high level look, and you can read more about it in depth, including specific claims which, as we said, lead in all sorts of directions. The idea that Angele Merkel is the daughter of Adolf Hitler, that Kim Jong un was put in place by the CIA to start a war if it was needed, that.
His genetics didn't even factor into.
It, right, right, And you can see, you can see all these things. This is a crossover event. This is also even linking to the Titanic, to the old idea that JP Morgan sunk it so he can form the Fed Reserve.
Guys, it sounds a little bit like somebody took our show, blasted it out into all these various things, and then just connected them all back together a little bit, doesn't it.
Paul was c all along.
Oh, we were talking at the top of the show about famous ces. Uh, and I didn't know this. This is this is the thing that you you you hit me to. The Q is a clearance level? Does that mean it's like the number of clearances as Q is chronologically in the alphabet. Are there that many? Or is it just like there's like a clearance, C clearance and then Q clearance?
Is it just sounds dope, there's an L clearance.
Q clearance is just the Doees equivalent of what we would call top secret God of their places.
But just to be clear, we don't know who Q is, if it's one person, if it's some kind of weird copy pasta thing like I mean and we have and you know, just to the veracity of these claims in these posts, to me, it sounds mostly like gobbledegook. Is the way that it's formatted indicative of some kind of you know, real brief? Is that the way a brief like this would be disseminated. Do we have any reason to believe that there's any veracity to these claims that people are just going so gaga over?
So?
The interesting thing about that is there are plenty of people who do believe that they have cracked the case, and they believe it based on what they see as their psychological their ability to divine or decipher the psychology behind the statements. But to be completely honest, no one, none of the true believers, unanimously agree on the identity.
I think it's interesting too when you see reporting about this, these folks are referred to as followers, which really does give it like almost this cult like status, which makes sense because it's based on what essentially amounts to some sort of weird mystical political scriptures. I said at the top of the show. It reminds it sounds like a weird poem because the way it's written is almost like a riddle or like some kind of strange incantation. Almost.
It does have this very odd religious quality to it.
Yeah, there's a doomsday aspect, I think. And at this point we have to mention that this is ongoing. You can visit any number of sites now and you can hear the current debate because despite the fact that numerous predictions have proven to be untrue, the people do continue to support this belief, and people do continue to argue that the things that may appear to be missteps in policy are purposeful and happening for some reason that will be revealed at a later date, which has been predicted
numerous times, has never been the correct date, but apparently may come to pass.
Yes, how predictions go. And then it's always like that, I will say in terms of like, how is this going to continue to linger? I think largely it may because of the fact that the president keeps retweeting some of these sources. You know, folks with screen names like jan bought three five four two two, the kinds of screen names that are typically associated with these, you know, Russian bots that are disseminating all this misinformation. And we've
talked about this off air. Whether the president I'm sorry it was debport zero three seven five five zero seven six, Whether or not the president is purposely trying to disseminate this to criticize his rivals at any cost, whether or not that cost is pushing dangerous, potentially dangerous misinformation out to his what seventy million followers, or whether he just
thinks it's cute, funny. He does that often, and he'll think something's just kind of a funny joke, or you know, puts egg on the face of one of his political rivals. I don't know which one it is, but the fact is that over the holiday weekend he retweeted QAnon sources something like twenty five times, and then kept retweeting responses to his retweets from other qan on accounts.
That's that's the thing, though, to a twitter like, once you get once you get hooked in, I'm slapping my arm with two fingers, and the impression of like addicts. Once you get hooked into the tweets and the retweets, you just start retweeting. It's so easy. It's a slippery, slippery slope.
Be careful. Do you guys think he still does his own tweets? Yes, like just he's got a device. He refused He's not supposed to, but I believe he refused.
To give it up.
Yeah. Recently, recently the President notified notified Congress via social media that he that his tweets and declarations on social media did count as official policy declarations or informing Congress. You can read that. I don't think that tweet will be deleted by the time this comes out. But don't let the conversation and here, folks, we want to hear from you. What's your opinion. Is there a q Andon prediction that did come true? And if so, what we'd
like to hear about it. We'd like to hear about it from you. You can find us and your fellow listeners on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Where are some derivation of conspiracy stuff where conspiracy stuff show. We highly recommend our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. And you know the memes alone, Oh.
It's going to be rife with them after this episode. I can only imagine. You can head over to Amazon search q and on and find the dozens of titles that are based on this this topic. If you wish to read more or just you know, consult your your local slash pol slash which stands for politically incorrect. And I know that now and I've learned my lesson and it's okay. We are going to be fine. If you don't want to do that stuff, you can find me on Call of Duty Mobile where I'm st d W I t K.
Wait there's a Call of Duty Mobile?
Yes there is, And I would love to play around a team deathmatch or domination with you totally into it, loving it, and I'm I'm pretty good at it, So watch.
Out anyone else there. There's a Mario Kart mobile now it's pretty damn good.
And there's also.
Tony Hawk's skate Jam Yeah, which is like sort of like a mobile version of pro skater Man. These mobile, these little devices just keep getting stronger and stronger.
Well, I believe Call of Duty may be sponsoring this show soon. That'd be cool, So watch out boys. From what I hear, what's your weapon of choice? Are you a groundsman? Are you a snipeman? Snipes snipester? Clearly, I am not a gamer. I prefer a healthy assault rifle with a nice scope on it. Got it that's accurate and reliable.
And if you don't Call of Duty you can call us directly.
We have a phone number as well.
Yes, the number is one eight three three STDW.
It's your duty call.
Yeah, we did it. If you don't want to do any of that stuff and you want to reach out to us with anything, any common, any idea that you've got for another episode, you can write to us, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of Iheartradios. How stuff works For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.