QAnon
| QAnon | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "An anonymous government insider known as "Q" is revealing a secret war waged by President Donald Trump against a global cabal of satanic, child-abusing elites in politics, media and entertainment, which will end in mass arrests and executions known as "the Storm."" | |
| Domain | Politics & Elections |
| Tactic | Conspiracy Theory Imposture |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2017 |
| Origin | Anonymous posts on the message board 4chan beginning October 28, 2017, later moving to 8chan and 8kun |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-27 |
| Further reading: books on Politics & Elections | |
QAnon is a sprawling conspiracy theory that began in October 2017 with anonymous posts on the message board 4chan by someone calling themselves "Q," who claimed to be a government insider with top-secret "Q-level" clearance. Q's posts, known as "drops," claimed that Donald Trump was secretly fighting a cabal of satanic pedophiles that controlled governments, media and finance, and that the cabal's members would soon be arrested. None of Q's predictions came true. Despite this, QAnon grew into a mass movement that spread across social media platforms and countries, influenced political candidates and was linked to violence. The FBI identified conspiracy-driven extremists, including QAnon adherents, as a potential domestic terrorism threat.
The claim
Q's first post, on October 28, 2017, claimed that Hillary Clinton's arrest was imminent. Later posts predicted mass arrests of prominent Democrats, celebrities and officials, military tribunals and a day of reckoning called "the Storm." Followers decoded Q's cryptic posts, connected them to news events and built an elaborate mythology. The theory absorbed earlier conspiracies, including Pizzagate, and later incorporated claims about COVID-19, vaccines and the 2020 election.
What the evidence shows
- Failed predictions. None of Q's specific predictions, including the arrests of Clinton, Barack Obama and other figures, occurred. Q's posts stopped in December 2020.
- No evidence. There is no evidence of a satanic cabal of child abusers controlling governments. Claims about specific individuals have been investigated and found baseless.
- Authorship. In 2022, two separate teams of linguistic researchers, one Swiss company and one pair of French researchers, analyzed Q's posts and concluded that they were likely written mainly by Paul Furber, a South African software developer, in the early period, and later by Ron Watkins, who ran the 8kun message board with his father. Both have denied being Q.
- Violence. Followers of QAnon have been involved in criminal acts, including an armed standoff near the Hoover Dam in 2018 and a 2019 killing in New York. Many participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol displayed QAnon symbols.
- Platform action. In 2020 Facebook, Twitter and YouTube removed many QAnon accounts and groups.
Why it persists
Researchers describe QAnon as functioning like a participatory game or a belief system, in which followers feel they are uncovering hidden truths and joining a community. Its core theme of protecting children drew in people who were not initially political, particularly through the "Save the Children" campaign in 2020. Failed predictions were explained away or reinterpreted. Surveys by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2021 found that about one in six Americans agreed with QAnon's central claim that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by satanic pedophiles.
Lessons for readers
- Track whether an anonymous source's predictions come true.
- Be wary of theories that reinterpret every failure as part of the plan.
- Claims of a hidden cabal controlling everything are a hallmark of conspiracy thinking with antisemitic roots.
- Emotional causes, such as protecting children, can be used to recruit people into extreme beliefs.
- Anonymous claims of insider access are easy to fake.
See also
- Pizzagate
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- Leaked images show satanic rituals on Epstein Island
- The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Hofstadter)
Sources
- Mike Rothschild, The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything (Melville House, 2021).
- David D. Kirkpatrick, "Who Is Behind QAnon? Linguistic Detectives Find Fingerprints," The New York Times, February 19, 2022.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation, Phoenix Field Office, intelligence bulletin on conspiracy theory–driven domestic extremists (May 2019).
- Public Religion Research Institute, Understanding QAnon's Connection to American Politics, Religion, and Media Consumption (May 2021).