Speaker 1: Q and On is the world's largest online political conspiracy movement.
Speaker 1: Followers believe someone code named Q is provided them with
Speaker 1: secret information from inside the White House. No one really
Speaker 1: knows the real identity of Q, though we aim to
Speaker 1: change that. I'm Jake Hanrahan and this is Q Clearance
Speaker 1: podcast series aimed unmasking the true identity of Q. This
Speaker 1: is brought to you by I R Radio and Q
Speaker 1: Data Media. In this episode, episode two, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: looking into the claim that Q and on is a
Speaker 1: leftist prank on US Republicans. Also, in a minute, we'll
Speaker 1: hear what Trump has had to say about Q and
Speaker 1: on this week. So as the US presidential election is closer,
Speaker 1: the two competing sides did their town hall events last week.
Speaker 1: Both Biden and Trump were lightly grilled on various topics,
Speaker 1: but hanging to their policies the election that finances all sorts.
Speaker 1: Amongst many things that Trump was criticized for his town
Speaker 1: hall event was his failure to disavow Q and On
Speaker 1: when asked about it a few weeks back. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm talking about here, be sure to
Speaker 1: go back and listen to episode one of this podcast.
Speaker 1: So once again, the topic of Q came up, and
Speaker 1: this is what happened when Trump was asked about thing
Speaker 1: to denounce Q and On. It is this theory that
Speaker 1: Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are
Speaker 1: the savior of that. Now, can you just once and
Speaker 1: for all state that that is completely not true about
Speaker 1: Q and On in its entirety. I know nothing about
Speaker 1: you and On. I just tried to know very little.
Speaker 1: You told me, But what you tell me doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: make it fact. I hate to say that I know
Speaker 1: nothing about it. I do know they are very much
Speaker 1: get pedophilia. That okay, okay, yeah, you did hear that, right?
Speaker 1: The president of the United States, the most powerful country
Speaker 1: on Earth, arguably for a second time, refused to disavow
Speaker 1: the Q and On conspiracy theory. So maybe the Q
Speaker 1: and On theory is real after all. Now I'm joking,
Speaker 1: of course, I don't think that. But Trump is feeding
Speaker 1: into that idea with these theories every time he goes
Speaker 1: on TV and refuses to speak out against them. For
Speaker 1: the followers of Q and On, it's a big thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Their ideas are being reaffirmed each time he does this. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's move on to talk about the main topic of
Speaker 1: this episode, the idea that suggests Q and on is
Speaker 1: a prank carried out by leftists meant to make us
Speaker 1: Trump followers look stupid. It began inen when BuzzFeed really
Speaker 1: than article with the catchy headline it's looking extremely likely
Speaker 1: that Q and on is a leftist prank on Trump voters,
Speaker 1: which they later changed to people think this whole q
Speaker 1: and on conspiracy theories of prank on Trump supporters. I
Speaker 1: remember when I first saw this article myself, and I
Speaker 1: just thought not, surely not. But to be fair, as
Speaker 1: I read the article, the coincidences within the piece were
Speaker 1: quite striking at times. We'll go into those a little
Speaker 1: bit more in a minute, but just bear in mind,
Speaker 1: on paper, this isn't actually the far reaching theory that
Speaker 1: it might sound like at first. And for those concerned
Speaker 1: about the creeping rise of Q and on, I think
Speaker 1: it acted almost as a bit of a comforter. They
Speaker 1: could laugh at Q and on again if it was
Speaker 1: all a big prank being played out against Trump boomers
Speaker 1: on no go websites like four chant, the threat was
Speaker 1: somewhat extinguished with this idea. A sense of having the
Speaker 1: upper hand could be restored. It was all a joke. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not above thinking that it would be absolutely fucking
Speaker 1: hilarious if hundreds of thousands of right wing MAGA people
Speaker 1: had gathered online only to be led by a group
Speaker 1: of secret leftists talking nonsense at them. But I do
Speaker 1: think again, for some people, there was a sense of
Speaker 1: faux relief. They could think that this increasingly powerful global
Speaker 1: conspiracy network was all made up by the good guys
Speaker 1: decide that they're more likely to agree with. But was
Speaker 1: it someone who looked deeper into this leftist prank theory
Speaker 1: is Matthew golt Goal is a journalist and a personal
Speaker 1: friend of mine. He works for vices Motherboard and runs
Speaker 1: the current affairs podcast Angry Plant. He's good at what
Speaker 1: he does and he's never wont to be swayed by
Speaker 1: a useful media narrative. I spoke to him about this theory.
Speaker 1: So the origin of this idea that Q and on
Speaker 1: is a leftist prank had been kind of bubbling in
Speaker 1: the fortune, you know, gross parts of the Internet for
Speaker 1: a few months in the summer of um and then
Speaker 1: it takes off on August six, when BuzzFeed publishes a
Speaker 1: story with the subhead what the fund is wrong with Boomers? Right?
Speaker 1: So the basic, the very very basic thrust of this
Speaker 1: thing is that the reporter seems to have found some
Speaker 1: people on some of non's on four Chan talking about
Speaker 1: how q is the politics Board's greatest achievement. Look, how
Speaker 1: many norms and boomers got sucked into our lulls chaos.
Speaker 1: Good job, and on's looking forward to our next big prank, right,
Speaker 1: which would appear to be a smoking gun unless you
Speaker 1: know anything about four Chan and how it works and
Speaker 1: how the politics board works. We've covered a lot of
Speaker 1: what four Chan and eighth Chan is and isn't in
Speaker 1: the last episode, but just to reiterate what Matthew god
Speaker 1: is talking about, he is how four Chan will often
Speaker 1: just put out prank saying anything, make things up, put
Speaker 1: stories out there aren't real. Basically us to folk with everybody.
Speaker 1: And in this case it kind of worked. In regards
Speaker 1: to this article, however, you will see that it's not
Speaker 1: just that there is more to it. Random people just
Speaker 1: say random ship just you know, just because they can. Um. So,
Speaker 1: where things get kind of weird is that like the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory I would say behind this conspiracy theory is
Speaker 1: that in nine nine, Luther Blissett published a novel in Italy.
Speaker 1: It's titled Q. It became a cult classic in Europe,
Speaker 1: never really took off in America. It was translated into
Speaker 1: English in two thousand four and released in Britain and
Speaker 1: the US. Then. Um. The novel was set in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, and it's against this backdrop of societal upheaval
Speaker 1: that follows the Reformation. Martin Martin, Martin Lutheran nails Martin
Speaker 1: Luther nails the ninety nine Theses onto the church door,
Speaker 1: and like the Catholic Church starts to lose power, the
Speaker 1: Protestant movement begins. Uh. There's a lot of war or
Speaker 1: in chaos and fighting that goes on after that. And
Speaker 1: so the main character of this book is moving throughout
Speaker 1: Europe and moving throughout the century and basically participating in
Speaker 1: various religious wars and rebellions. He doesn't have a name,
Speaker 1: and he's adopting different identities as he goes, and he's
Speaker 1: this radical revolutionary figure. Um kind of think of him
Speaker 1: as like a precursor to like a v for Vendetta
Speaker 1: kind of character. Right. Um, So, the antagonist of the
Speaker 1: story is this agent of the Pope named Q, and
Speaker 1: this agent of the Pope is the bad guy, and
Speaker 1: he's sending letters to radical leaders, spreading misinformation to so
Speaker 1: chaos among the ranks of the revolutionaries. He claims to
Speaker 1: be a person, sometimes he claims to be a group
Speaker 1: of people, and he always claims that he's writing from
Speaker 1: within the halls of power, right, like, you know, I've
Speaker 1: got the Count's ear, so I know what's really going on.
Speaker 1: And if your revolutionaries will just do what I tell you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll be able to wipe out all of
Speaker 1: these bad guys, like all of these the ruling class
Speaker 1: that's on top of you. Right. So he says he's
Speaker 1: on the side of the rebel, so that he's infiltrated
Speaker 1: the institutions of power. But at the same time he's
Speaker 1: always feeding information back into the Vatican Um. And when
Speaker 1: he is talking to the rebels, he always science this
Speaker 1: missives Q. Sounds familiar, right, Well, this is where the
Speaker 1: coincidences or the clues come in. Think about this cue
Speaker 1: book for a second. As Matthew said, the book is
Speaker 1: about a secret shadow entity within the government that is
Speaker 1: moving from place to place whispering ideas in people's ears
Speaker 1: to stoke conflict. And his name just so happens to
Speaker 1: be Q as well, same emo, same name as our
Speaker 1: Q and On. That's a pretty big coincidence, if you
Speaker 1: ask me. And remember, according to Q and On, there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as coincidences. That's one of Que's
Speaker 1: many mantras. Certainly, if there is a collective of mischievous
Speaker 1: leftist behind Q and On, this might start to sound
Speaker 1: like an inside joke, right, a way to openly laugh
Speaker 1: at the Q followers whilst remaining hidden in plain sight.
Speaker 1: This is also kind of Q and On style as well,
Speaker 1: hidden in plain sight. It gets weirder. So, the author
Speaker 1: of this book Q is Luther Blisset, right, So who
Speaker 1: is Luther Blisset um? And could it be possible that
Speaker 1: this person is involved somehow in the Q and On movement? Well,
Speaker 1: Luther Blisset is not one person. It's a collective of
Speaker 1: writers that describe themselves as a collective of cultural agitation
Speaker 1: and guerrilla communication. These are like cultural pranksters that we
Speaker 1: kind of don't have any more, um and now they've
Speaker 1: they're still around. They call themselves the Womming Collective UM
Speaker 1: and so after this BuzzFeed article comes out, I reach
Speaker 1: out and I talked to them. So now you're going
Speaker 1: to hear a snippet of an interview Matthew Gold did
Speaker 1: with a man named wu Ming Wooming. He's a member
Speaker 1: of the Wooming Collective. Again a joke name. These lot
Speaker 1: like to mess around. Now, remember the Women Collective is
Speaker 1: the obscure leftist pranksters that came together to write the
Speaker 1: Cube Book, the one we're talking about that has the
Speaker 1: parallels with Q and On. What Woman has to say
Speaker 1: here is particularly interesting, I think in regards to if
Speaker 1: they are or aren't behind Q and On. Some conspiracies
Speaker 1: do exist. What is a conspiracy? You have a conspiracy
Speaker 1: when a group of people or more than one people
Speaker 1: agree in secret to take some action against someone else,
Speaker 1: a third party, against someone else's interests at least. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you can just say that conspiracies do exist, but real,
Speaker 1: actual conspiracies have some key characteristics that make them very
Speaker 1: different from the kind of convoluted, cumbersome conspiracy theories which
Speaker 1: spiracists dream about and share and spread. Okay, and you've
Speaker 1: you've designed some conspiracies yourself, correct or you've been a
Speaker 1: part of it, we practically debunked some conspiracies. We devised
Speaker 1: the pranks as a practical critique and a direct intervention
Speaker 1: against conspiracism. That's what we did. From the horse's mouth there,
Speaker 1: a member of the Women Collective is saying what they
Speaker 1: do is construct events, construct pranks to kind of show
Speaker 1: that the intricacies and nonsense of many conspiracy theories are
Speaker 1: a problem, and they aim to use a kind of
Speaker 1: satire to debunk them. Now does that mean that that's
Speaker 1: what they did with Q and on? Are they creating
Speaker 1: a conspiracy to show the people fall for anything? When
Speaker 1: you look at how outlandish some of Q and on
Speaker 1: theories are, you might think, yeah, that makes sense. Now,
Speaker 1: let's scale back a minute to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the wombing collectives other activities. Specifically, let me explain how
Speaker 1: they took part in their own way in Italy's Satanic
Speaker 1: panic in the nineties. Satanic panic being a time when
Speaker 1: the country's law enforcement, the media, everybody seems to think
Speaker 1: there's some kind of occult ritual's going on with kids
Speaker 1: saying devil worship. It's all there, and throughout history we've
Speaker 1: seen this happen in different countries. Almost always there's nothing
Speaker 1: to it, devil worship, pedophile rings, and lots of empty accusations.
Speaker 1: It all has a parallel to cun On, as you
Speaker 1: will see. Stay with me on this. So Italy Satanic
Speaker 1: Panic took place off the back of the so called
Speaker 1: Years of Lead, a time from the sixties to the
Speaker 1: eighties when there were thousands of far right and far
Speaker 1: terror attacks in the country. Italy was still very much
Speaker 1: a nervous culture in some respects because of this. In
Speaker 1: the nineties, a new threat emerged, devil worshipers. Several people
Speaker 1: were accused of satanic pedophile abuse, sixteen children were taken
Speaker 1: from their parents by the state, and one mother even
Speaker 1: killed herself Off the back of all this. I won't
Speaker 1: go into too much detail here, but basically it was
Speaker 1: later found that Italian officials had aggressively coerced people into
Speaker 1: giving evidence about something that just wasn't true. The Satanic
Speaker 1: panic accusations were baseless. To show the government how stupid,
Speaker 1: heavy handed and irrational they'd been, the Women Collective began
Speaker 1: planning fake evidence in the woods to make it look
Speaker 1: like there had been a cult satanic practices taking place. Eventually,
Speaker 1: they revealed themselves to show that it was a prank.
Speaker 1: It sounds funked up, but what they did was show
Speaker 1: that the police were not doing their due diligence whilst
Speaker 1: investigating something extremely sensitive. The Women Collective had pulled a
Speaker 1: prank to expose a serious problem within Italian policing. Now
Speaker 1: let me be clear here, it wasn't like the Woming
Speaker 1: Collective planet it and then the satanic panic began that
Speaker 1: had already happened. The satanic panic was not because of them,
Speaker 1: but they were the ones who took part in this
Speaker 1: prank to show, hey, you were not doing the proper
Speaker 1: work here. These satanic panic Shenanigans also kind of strike
Speaker 1: a parallel with what Q and On is doing right.
Speaker 1: Cure has told his followers many times that the Democrat
Speaker 1: Party is a devil worshiping Peter following he's insinuated all
Speaker 1: sorts around the occult worship in various different cue drops.
Speaker 1: He has said the following obscure things quote spirit cooking,
Speaker 1: what does spirit cooking represent? Cult? And does Satan exist?
Speaker 1: Does the thought of Satan exists? Who worshiped Satan? What
Speaker 1: is a cult? Epstein Island and Operation mocking Bird Priority
Speaker 1: to clean out the bad actors to unite people behind
Speaker 1: the America First agenda, Many and our government worships Satan
Speaker 1: end quote. Satanic occultism is part of the central Q
Speaker 1: and On mythos. However, unlike the Woming collective, Q and
Speaker 1: On has not dropped the mask to say, yeah, this
Speaker 1: was all a prank. In fact, what Q and On
Speaker 1: is doing is more like what the Italian police did
Speaker 1: in the nineties, tearing families apart by putting out false information.
Speaker 1: So are the Wombing Collective behind Q on on or not?
Speaker 1: Matthew go asked them directly, are you responsible for q
Speaker 1: and On? Of course not. They they basically said, like
Speaker 1: they don't think that it's possible for stuff like this
Speaker 1: to to work anymore because of the way that the
Speaker 1: modern information ecosystem works and the way like parity and
Speaker 1: satire work, Like all of that stuff's broken down, and
Speaker 1: they so they think like any kind of any kind
Speaker 1: of prank that they would try to pull them this
Speaker 1: way would just end up making things worse at the time.
Speaker 1: And like what's quoted in the BuzzFeed article is Wooming
Speaker 1: is tweeting about the connections. So they're out there saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is kind of strange. This is similar to our book,
Speaker 1: and BuzzFeed kind of implies that, you know, hey, this
Speaker 1: is them taking responsibility. Um. And when I talk to them,
Speaker 1: they're like, no, we we didn't do this, um we
Speaker 1: And I believe that their exact quote is believe me,
Speaker 1: we had never heard about Q until six weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I've seen the emails that Goal is speaking about there,
Speaker 1: I've seen the communications, and every turn the Wooming Collective
Speaker 1: have outright denied any involvement with Q and On. What's more,
Speaker 1: they've never once staged a prank without claiming it and
Speaker 1: have never engaged in anything as malicious as it will
Speaker 1: be to keep Q and On going this long. The
Speaker 1: other clues to who Q and On might be don't
Speaker 1: add up if it were the Women Collective either. We'll
Speaker 1: speak about that in another episode, but basically, the Women
Speaker 1: Collective Cue book is a handy coincidence that was spurred
Speaker 1: on by fortune and blown out of proportion by the media.
Speaker 1: The Women Collective do bring attention to a good point, though,
Speaker 1: that satire in a post truth world is all but dead.
Speaker 1: We saw a clear example of this last week when
Speaker 1: Trump retweeted a satirical article by Babylon b as if
Speaker 1: it was real. The joke was in the article that
Speaker 1: Twitter had shut down its network to stop the spread
Speaker 1: of negative comments about Trump's adversary, Joe Biden. It was
Speaker 1: meant to be funny. It was meant to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1: This is what the Babylon be does, much like its
Speaker 1: counterpart The Onion their satire news sites. The same week,
Speaker 1: Trump also retweeted a wild que and On conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden orchestrated the killing of Seal Team six
Speaker 1: members to cover up a plot where they didn't actually
Speaker 1: kill Osama Bin Ladding. The theory states, without any evidence whatsoever,
Speaker 1: that in fact, only been Laddin's body double was killed,
Speaker 1: and that it was done as a blood sacrifice to Iran.
Speaker 1: Trump retweeted this outlandish theory. You couldn't make it up.
Speaker 1: I think the women collective theory ultimately serves as a
Speaker 1: cautionary tale within the q and On universe. Just because
Speaker 1: you want something to be true because it fits your
Speaker 1: ideals doesn't make it so. It works both ways. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying is we have to be very careful when
Speaker 1: looking at who Q and on actually is or who
Speaker 1: he might be. Everyone has their own ideas, their own clues,
Speaker 1: their own evidence, but if we don't come through it
Speaker 1: all carefully and objectively, the prank might end up being
Speaker 1: pulled on us. Next week, we'll be looking at y
Speaker 1: Q and our mood from four chance Hn what that
Speaker 1: meant for the direction of queues messages. And also I'll
Speaker 1: be going over some new leads that might explain where
Speaker 1: the original cue post came from. Q Clearance is brought
Speaker 1: to you by I Heart Radio and Codatar Media. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Handrahan. You can find me online at Jake Underscore
Speaker 1: hand Rahan. That's h a N A h a N.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by myself with fact checking by
Speaker 1: Sarah hi Tower. The music is by Sam Black and
Speaker 1: the sound levels were mixed by Thomas Griffin at Splicing
Speaker 1: Block wo untold