Forensic linguists say they now know the origin of the Q texts on the message board that began the QAnon movement
One of the enduring mysteries of the Trump era - 'who is Q' - appears to be solved, sort of.
Two sets of forensic linguists have published two separate papers using two different techniques to conclude that Q appears to be two people: South African tech journalist Paul Furber, 55, and 4chan internet message board moderator and computer entrepreneur Ron Watkins, 34, according to the studies.
'While relying on two completely different technologies, both stylometric [quantitative study of literary style] analyses could establish that QAnon's early period on the 4chan forum, from October to December 2017, was likely the result of a collaboration between Paul Furber and Ron Watkins,' according to Claude-Alain Roten, the CEO of OrphAnalytics.
Roten, who worked with Lionel Pousaz, a partner at OrphAnalytics, took the writings of several people identified as potential Q originators and analyzed writings they had authored then cross-referenced it using computer software with early QAnon posts.
'Open your eyes. Many in our govt worship Satan,' was the first post on October 2017 that launched the movement, according to The New York Times, which was given exclusive access to the linguistics studies.
When reached by the Times, Furber didn't dispute that Q's writing resembled his own, while Watkins, who is running for Congress in Arizona, told the NYT: 'I am not Q.'
This debunks one theory that Q is a high-ranking military insider.
Ron Watkins, 35, who is running for Congress in Arizona, defended the messaging of the movement as mostly good but denied being Q
South African tech journalist Paul Furber, 55, was identified as one of the earlier advocates of QAnon
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar met with Arizona congressional hopeful Ron Watkins, who was identified as one of the original authors of the QAnon movement, which he has denied
'An accidental stylistic resemblance between Watkins and a still-to-be identified author seems quite unlikely,' said Florian Cafiero, a visiting scholar at Columbia University who co-authored the study with Jean-Baptiste Camps from the French École des Chartes.
QAnon started out as a fringe group on the obscure and extremely nerdy 4chan internet forum but grew into a global movement that propagated wild conspiracy, like that there was an international child sex ring run by Democrats operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizza shop called Comet Pizza.
Followers of QAnon believed that then-President Donald Trump was a supporter and many of the movement's devotees participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol based on the debunked belief that the 2020 election was stolen due to widespread computer fraud.
The FBI labeled the movement a terror threat.
A poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 15 percent of all Americans believe the basic tenets of QAnon.
QAnon followers believed that an international child sex ring was run out of this DC pizza shop
Jacob Anthony Chansley, who also goes by the name Jake Angeli, a QAnon believer known as the 'QAnon Shaman,' speaks to a crowd of Trump supporters in November 2020
Devotees of QAnon believed that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump through widespread voter fraud. That theory has been debunked. Pictured: A Q follower in May 2020
Furber didn't dispute that Qu's writing resembled his own
Roten and Pousaz concluded that Furber and Watkins worked together initially, but when the message board migrated to 8chan, Watkins took over. Watkins' father reportedly owned the 8chan message board.
Furber told The New York Times that his writing may bare a resemblance to Q because he was so heavily influenced by the moderator's style.
In a telephone interview with The Times from his home near Johannesburg, Furber didn't dispute that Q's writing resembled his own. Instead, he claimed that Q's posts had influenced him so deeply that they altered his prose.
It 'took over our lives, literally,' Furber told the paper. 'We all started talking like him.'
More bluntly, Watkins told The Times: 'I am not Q.' But he defended the messages behind the movement.
'There is probably more good stuff than bad,' he told The Times, enumerating the valuable messages like 'fighting for the safety of the country, and for the safety of the children of the country.'
Watkins has been outed before. In March 2021, HBO launched a docuseries called 'Q: Into the Storm' which traces the origins of QAnon to Watkins, whose father owns the 8chan forum.
Pousaz defended his unmasking of the QAnon founders as important social science.
'QAnon is going to fuel social studies for a long time, and maybe even history, as one of the most singular and concerning movements of our time. As such, identifying its authors and their motivations is of great importance to orient future debates,' says Pousaz, a co-inventor at OrphAnalytics.
Roten and Pousaz concluded that Furber and Watkins (pictured) worked together initially, but when the message board migrated to 8chan, Watkins took over
'There is probably more good stuff than bad,' Watkins told The Times, enumerating the valuable messages like 'fighting for the safety of the country, and for the safety of the children of the country.'
QAnon followers recently flocked to Dallas in November under the impression that JFK Jr. - who died in a plane crash in 1999 - was going to 'appear' and announce a vice presidential run with Donald Trump. They later refused to leave, calling the Texas city their 'promised land.'
QAnon rapper Pryme Minister reportedly offered property for the conspiracy theorists to set up a permanent headquarters near the infamous grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza - the site of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vice News first reported.
The group expected JFK Jr. to appear at 12.29 p.m. on November 2 - the time his father was shot dead - but when he failed to arrive, followers dashed off to the Rolling Stones concert at the Cotton Bowl instead.
Michael Brian Protzman, on the group's leaders known to his followers as Negative48, helped organize the gatherings and told his 105,000 Telegram followers that QAnon rapper Pryme Minister, whose real name is Randell Moody, has offered the use of a property in the city that could act as a permanent headquarters for the group, according to Vice News.
In an audio chat on a Telegram channel called Occupy Dealey Plaza, someone asks Protzman how long the group was going to stay in Dallas, to which he reveals that they seek to maintain a base in there because it is 'the promised land.'
Although there is no official leader of QAnon, Protzman has create his own cult-like group within the movement that recognizes him as a godlike figure, Vice News reported.
He uses his devoted following on Telegram to spread his own conspiracy theories and lore JFK Jr. is the Archangel Michael and Donald Trump is the Holy Spirit.
Protzman makes predictions and touts theories based on his own interpretation of gematria, the ancient Jewish numerology code that assigns a numerical value to letters, words and phrases and translates them to create a new meaning.
The group's leader Brian Protzman (pictured above) maintains that JFK Jr. did, in fact, appear to them that night in the form of Keith Richards during a Rolling Stones concert
QAnon rapper Pryme Minister has reportedly offered property for the group to set up a new headquarters in Dallas and called it the QAnon 'promised land'
Pictures posted to social media by Steven Monacelli, the publisher of Protean magazine, show QAnon followers congregated on the infamous grassy knoll. At one point, the group stands in the shape of a giant ‘Q'
A popular QAnon theory claims that he faked his death
JFK Jr. died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts in 1999, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette and her sister, Lauren.
Navy divers found their bodies still strapped into their seats in the wreckage 18 hours after his plane, which he was piloting, disappeared.
In 2019, Forbes reports, some believers expected JFK Jr. to return on July 4, again as Trump's running mate.
The conspiracy theorists now reportedly believe JFK Jr., the son of former President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, will reveal he switched political affiliations and faked his own death to avoid retribution, according to Gizmodo.
According to the theory, he would announce that he was running with former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but Trump would step down and let JFK Jr. step in as president and appoint former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn as his vice president.
Trump would then 'most likely' become the king of kings, a popular QAnon Telegram account with more than 100,000 subscribers wrote about the conspiracy in a post on Monday. It did not specify what becoming the 'king of kings' would entail.
They also believed that after JFK Jr. would appear, the clocks would go back an hour, people would adopt the Julian calendar, and the date would go back to October 20, according to Newsweek.
JFK Jr., the theory posits, will then help usher in a new age American prosperity, as his father did in the 1960s.
Protzman also offered the theory that JFK, JFK Jr. and Jackie Kennedy would all reappear, after which JFK would tour the world for seven days, transfer the presidency back to Trump and die, Gizmodo reports, even though that is not how presidential power works.
It is unclear why the QAnon followers thought JFK Jr. would appear at the location where his father was famously murdered in 1963.
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