THE Q-FILES
Baby trafficking, devil worship and political paranoia — how this US domestic terror threat is making its way into FNQ
THE believers are among us.
QAnon, a far right conspiracy theory that has taken hold in the US, has jumped borders during the pandemic and is seeding itself among Far Northern residents and business owners.
A professor has retired to the Far North in a bid to keep his distance from the coming storm he is convinced will erupt in the next three months.
He is not alone in his thinking that there is a group of elites that has taken over world affairs and that babies are being trafficked to extract adrenochrome from their blood as a way to keep themselves looking more youthful.
The professor, whom we have chosen not to identify, name-dropped a prominent former Australian politician as one of the cabal, which Q adherents believe is led by Hillary Clinton and a dark society of devil-worshipping child-eating Democrats.
Pro QAnon signs have appeared at Mt Carbine, however FNQ supporters mostly share their theories on social media.
Cape York clinical psychologist Dr Tim White, who has seen the graffiti, said the coronavirus pandemic had much to do with the theory’s spread.
“The time is ripe for it,” Dr White said.
THE professor has retired to the Far North, keeping his distance from the storm he is convinced will erupt in the next three months.
Sitting in a Cairns cafe, his blue eyes bore in as he describes the elite “cabal” of satanic paedophiles farming children for their blood, underground military bases and the so-called “deep state”.
“I am an escape artist, on the edges of things,” the former political science university lecturer said.
He is a believer in QAnon, a far right conspiracy theory that has taken hold in the US and jumped borders during the pandemic to seed itself among Far Northern residents and business owners.
“Are you aware of the extent of baby trafficking, of adrenochrome?” he asked.
“This is the basis of Q; a group of elites have taken over world affairs; there is a genuine conspiracy … the techno giants who own Amazon etc are sociopaths.
“Yes (I believe it), absolutely. They manufacture adrenochrome from (children’s) blood which is a way to keep themselves looking more youthful.”
He name-dropped a prominent former Australian politician as one of the cabal, which Q adherents believe is lead by none other than Hillary Clinton and a dark society of devilworshipping child-eating Democrats.
A now debunked but still circulated 2016 conspiracy theory posited that Ms Clinton ran a paedophile ring from a Washington DC pizza shop.
The affair is known among Q believers as #pizzagate.
“Things will come out quite violently in the next three months,” the professor said.
The Q faithful believe a system of Deep Underground Military Bases (DUMBS, seriously) are holding these children, including in Australia.
Adrenochrome is actually synthesised by the oxidation of adrenaline, and a quick online search will reveal 44 companies globally can supply the chemical, which is mainly used to slow blood clotting.
Hunter S Thompson’s seminal work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas may have kicked off the idea that adrenochrome was a drug of the elite when the character Dr Gonzo cites a living human adrenal gland as the only source of the substance.
QAnon is insidious in that it has spread across a range of demographics and belief systems that would normally not be caught dead side-by-side; far right conservatives and Green environmental activists are often oblivious bedfellows.
“People are searching for meaning,” Cairns psychologist Suzanne Scarrow said.
“If they are fear-based then they find more evidence of that fear. There is certainly a lot more paranoia than there was pre COVID-19.”
Q followers often share a habit of spending hours on social media “researching” links to support theories, sharing dizzying maps of the “deep state” and questionable “scientific” findings.
One notorious example is the widely circulated video by a group calling themselves America’s Frontline Doctors, who claimed hydroxychloroquine was the coronavirus cure.
“We don’t need masks. There is a cure,” said Dr Stella
Immanuel from the steps of the Washington DC Supreme Court.
Dr Immanuel, a Christian pastor and founder of a church in Houston, has also preached that infertility issues and endometriosis are the fault of women who sleep with demons.
BUILDING A GROWING ONLINE PROFILE
In Cairns, the professor cited a “fact” that 6000 German doctors backed hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID.
A similar claim was circulated by The Science Times, a website debunked for failed fact checks and poor transparency by the amateur media watchdog mediabiasfactcheck.com.
In the Far North, vocal Q “researchers” are hard to spot; they are unlikely to be wearing QAnon or #WWG1WGA (Where We Go One We Go All, a common QAnon slogan) t shirts in public.
Instead, they mostly share their “research” and theories on social media.
Often, the hashtags appropriated by QAnon seem outwardly noble.
One, #savethechildren, has had a resounding success blurring the lines between para
noid delusion and the legitimate Save The Children charity, to which it has zero connection.
Those sharing the hashtag, in many cases, are not aware of its association to QAnon.
THE ANONYMOUS NATURE OF QANON
In its extensive coverage of the Q phenomenon, the New York Times has reported on the movement co-opting legitimate concern over human trafficking in order to gain followers.
The kicker is, no one actually knows who is behind QAnon.
Followers have their own theory.
“It is extremely likely it is US military intelligence,” the professor said.
The anonymity fostered by the QAnon’s origins has added to its allure.
According to Joseph M.
Pierre, MD, in a 2019 article in Psychology Today: “The theory started a few years ago based on the online postings of an individual going by the name of ‘Q’ who claimed to have access to top-secret information supporting a wide variety of conspiratorial claims, including those implicating the Democrats, the Clintons, and the likes of the FBI in orchestrating a coup against President Trump as well as running an international child sex trafficking ring.”
So called “Q drops”, anonymous cryptic messages by “Q” to followers, regularly appear on 8kun, an image board website owned by businessman Jim Watkins, who, according to the US Federal Electoral Commission, also runs the Super PAC (political action committee, a campaign group to fund election candidates) “Disarm the Deep State”.
The Super PAC’s website is littered with QAnon terminology and although it purports itself to be independent, supports mainly Republican candidates, most of whom are openly “members of WWG1WGA”.
SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS CRACK DOWN
Twitter, Reddit and Facebook have actively deleted many Q-related accounts and posts as misinformation, but this has also fuelled paranoia about the role of technogiants in the “deep state” and pushed many followers to far right platform Parler.
In 2019, Twitter deleted 418 Russian accounts connected to the Kremlin-backed internet Research Agency, a statebacked “troll farm”.
NBC reported that the second most-tweeted topic from these accounts was #Qanon.
One such account, @CovfefeNationUS, actively pushed the first “Q-drop” less than two weeks after it was posted.
Millions of troll tweets followed, adding fuel to the paranoid fire.
In May of that year, a leaked FBI memo revealed that QAnon was considered a domestic terror threat in the US, adding fuel to the Q conspiracy idea that “three-letter agencies” are out to depose US President Donald Trump.
In its first annual threat assessment in February, Australian agency ASIO echoed the FBI’s concerns.
PANDEMIC BREEDS ‘MASS HYSTERIA’
So, how did a fringe conspiracy theory on par with the posits of UK former footballer David Icke hop into the mainstream and make its way Far North?
Cape York clinical psychologist Tim White, who has spotted pro-Q graffiti near Mount Carbine, said the coronavirus pandemic had much to do with the theory’s spread.
“The time is ripe for it,” Dr White said.
“There is a psychological phenomenon around mass hysteria; it becomes exponential as a collective groupthink.”
The damage that QAnon has wrought is growing anecdotally; a Reddit thread called QAnon casualties is home to a growing community of refugees from broken homes and relationships torn apart by the cult-like belief in the fringe theory.
“The belief comes down to trauma and complete dissatisfaction and fear of the government; they will isolate between conspiracies, bouncing out of one and into another,” Dr White said.
He said QAnon’s shelf life was finite.
“You’ll find that most people will get bored with it,” Dr White said.
“Separate them from the stimulation – from their devices.
“Education is also another factor, but it has to be gentle; it is counterintuitive because their first reaction is: ‘That’s what a non-believer would say.’”
Ironically, the influx of post-COVID Q supporters has inflamed paranoia within the sprawling phenomenon.
Participants of Global Save Our Children marches against “the cabal” have been branded as agents of the
“deep state” by old guard Q “researchers”, who are losing control of the original pro Trump dialogue.
DENOUNCED BY INSTITUTIONS
Meanwhile, the former professor was still confident in his predictions.
But his former employer was frank in its denunciation of QAnon.
“It is sheer lunacy,” the current chairman of the university’s political science department said.
“It’s a ‘crisis cult’, as some have called it, and is laughable were it not for the potentially serious political ramifications of this particular manifestation of magical thinking, exacerbated by the social media.
“While we take movements such as QAnon seriously as objects of political analysis, we are appalled by spread of these delusional and dangerous ‘theories’.”