QAnon: The Search for Q

-QAnon is the single greatest information operation

in the history of humanity.

- Our kids are not for sale! - Our kids are not for sale!

-You know, currency of the elite basically is babies.

-Drinking children's blood, adrenochrome...

This stuff has been going on.

- Where we go one... - We go all.

-There was a new phenomenon this week, something called QAnon.

-What exactly is QAnon, and why is it making headlines now?

On Saturday, October 28, 2017,

a series of posts on the message board 4chan...

-...which is an anonymous online message...

- Message board... - Claimed the arrest

of Hillary Clinton was scheduled for the following Monday.

-The anonymous user claimed to be

a high-level government insider,

but signed the post only Q...

A nod to Q level security clearance

granted by the Department of Energy.

-An army of digital soldiers quickly assembled behind Q.

Where we go one, we go all.

- Where we go one, we go all. - God bless America.

-Trump began retweeting accounts associated with Q.

-Our president just gave the most damning Q proof ever.

-The president condemns and denounces any group

that would incite violence.

This is a militant group.

There's been two murders tied to this group this year alone.

QAnon is a military operation.

That's why they're not allowed to talk about it.

-As Q supporters began running for Congress

and headlines about Q invaded everyone's

social-media feeds, millions around the globe,

began asking their friends and family...

- What the fuck is Q? - What the fuck is Q?

We have an army

of digital soldiers.

You're with dealing with one of

the most experienced spies you're ever gonna meet.

-It's meant to be kind of like a big joke.

-It's called QAnon, a fringe conspiracy theory

that some have likened to an online religion.

-Well, I don't know much about the movement

other than I understand they like me very much.

-As long as these drops are still continuing,

it matters a lot.

Because who's writing them

and who is having all this influence?

-What exactly is QAnon, and why is it making headlines now?

[ Woman on P.A. speaking indistinctly ]

Please have your boarding pass and identification ready.

Which gate are we again?

- We're right there. - Oh, okay.

Hey. You made it.

- Hello. - Hi.

My entire life, I've been a bit of a political nerd,

so unsurprisingly, I've spent my career in or around campaigns

and public policy in Washington, D.C.

-Growing up in Israel, I saw firsthand

what it looks like to be at war with your neighbor.

I became a filmmaker to tell stories

that positively address ideological divides.

Back in 2012, I helped launch a YouTube...

- SoulPancake. - SoulPancake.

- where our mission was to make videos

that inspired deeper conversations

than you could typically find online.

After the 2016 election,

a friend talked me into quitting my stable job

and spending a really weird couple of years

making a documentary with him.

"Active Measures." - Yeah, no.

- You've seen it? - When Marley came to L.A...

-We discovered we were both obsessed with a new phenomenon

on the scene. - An anonymous figure known as Q,

which connected our worlds, the Internet and politics.

-I wanted to know Q's identity, who the person behind the cloak

was because it seems like a political operation

designed to weaponize societal divisions

and foment distrust in our institutions.

-What I didn't see happening in the coverage around Q

was a desire to better understand why Q exists,

and as a result, things have become much more hostile,

and it feels like having a conversation

is nearly impossible.

-Which is dangerous for our democracy.

And so in the middle of a pandemic...

Marley and I packed our bags.

And headed out to find Q.

Almost everyone these days knows someone

who's fallen down the Q rabbit hole.

We're no exception. We're starting in Tampa, Florida.

We're meeting Bayan's friend J.T.

to learn how a former Bernie Bro took a turn

and has devoted his career to Q.

It feels like a perfect starting point

to get an understanding of what Q is

and how someone becomes so enveloped in the movement.

-My friend J.T. is a talented musician

who's become a rock star in the Q community

after turning several Q slogans

into anthems for the movement.

- So I took my hair down. - It looks great.

-It looks... I mean, it looks very majestic.

One thing that we connected on early on

was that you were a Bernie guy in '15, right?

Yes. And the reason why... 'cause he... he...

he said, "Break the establishment."

-How did you go from Bernie to Trump?

-Bernie got kicked out of the running.

I was furious at Hillary.

[ Indistinct chanting, shouting ]

And then Trump came out.

He started saying the things that I liked about Bernie,

which was fighting against the establishment.

-Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt...

and when I say "corrupt,"

I'm talking about totally corrupt...

political establishment.

So how did you find Q?

-Jordan Sather, who I love, literally probably the two days

after Q posted, I saw his feed about it.

And I'm like, "What the heck is this?"

...Q information.

All of this is just going to be mainly questions

I'm gonna throw out there and thoughts for you guys to ponder.

-So... So strategic to, like, reel you in,

you know? - Right.

-You'd... Like, they put in a code, and you're like,

"What the hell does that mean?"

And then you figure out what it means,

and you go, "Whoa! I figured out what it means!"

It's a game, but it's a game with insider information

that you can't get from anywhere else.

It's like going to college for the deep state.

-So it wasn't, like, a moment? It was kind of, like, gradual

and over time that you discovered...

-It... Well, it... Listen, anybody

that is involved in the Q movement

that can't admit it's a psyop

is too blind to see that it's a psyop. It is a psyop.

- What's a psyop? - It's a psychological operation.

-A psyop, or psychological operation, is usually

a military-led strategy

to influence a population's emotions,

motives, and objective reasoning.

-We wrapped up the interview in the parking lot,

and I hopped in J.T.'s car to catch up.

Right after 2016,

I was reunited with one of my best friends.

We got a... We started a band.

It was my dream to be playing with him again.

And everything lined up and... and in the way,

you know, I thought that I wanted my career to be, and...

And... and then this happened, and...

my eyes were opened to something that I knew existed

and I couldn't put my finger on it,

and it gave me an opportunity to

start to put my finger on it. - In 2018,

J.T. was inspired by Q and began writing songs for the movement.

-The songs all came out, and beginning in 2018,

he just said, "Nah, dude.

I can't be... I can't be around that."

-Unfortunately J.T.'s best friend

didn't feel as inspired by Q.

-I had... I... Of course, I love the guy.

I-I honor him.

And it was almost like an ultimatum.

Like, I could put it away.

I could, like, say, "Well, this isn't worth,

you know, just writing music about all the time."

And for, you know, some reason, I-I didn't make that choice,

I made the choice to take the hard road.

Where we go one, we go all.

Because...

Well, I'm a rebel.

And nobody is gonna tell me what to do.

-We pulled over to eat and J.T. got an alert on his phone.

What just happened? - Yeah. So, dude,

like, Q just posted.

Says that "this nation under God

shall have a new birth of freedom,

and that government of the people, by the people,

for the people shall not perish from the Earth."

"Abraham Lincoln, November 1863.

Together we win."

The question I get from people

that don't really know about Q,

but just have heard of him is, you know,

it does make you wonder why they would try so hard

to make it sound awful and bad and evil.

And it's like, they... Thousands of articles,

thousands of articles written about... about it

as a... insane and evil and extremist.

-A conspiracy group whose theories

make alien-invader claims sound mainstream.

-Falsely claim that the world is run

by a Satanic cabal of elites.

-The Bureau warned some of those conspiracy theories

will "likely motivate some domestic extremists."