The Identity of “Q” at the Center of the QAnon Movement May have Finally Been Revealed

Has a new documentary finally unmasked the true identity of “Q”, the mysterious prophet at the center of the QAnon conspiracy movement that has enraptured millions of Americans? It increasingly seems that this may be the case.

QAnon emerged in October 2017 on the internet chat forum, 4Chan, which had been home to the so-called “alt-right” far-right movement. The QAnon movement has been at the center of incendiary accusations over a secret cabal of supposedly cannibalistic child sex-trafficking elites, conspiracies linking 5G to the ongoing pandemic, as well as claims that former President Donald Trump is leading a war against globalist elites, among other claims.

However, the HBO series “Q: Into the Storm” by filmmaker Cullen Hoback may finally have revealed the man at the center of the conspiratorial movement. Rather than being a top-secret government operative, instead the culprit may have been the most obvious one: Ron Watkins, the administrator of fringe message board 8kun.

In the Sunday finale for the miniseries, Watkins is revealed to have been lying about the role he played in the over 4,000 messages or “QDrops” posted since the movement’s inception.

While discussing his role in disseminating voter-fraud claims following Trump’s 2020 election loss, Watkins explained: “It was basically three years of intelligence training, teaching normies how to do intelligence work. It was basically what I was doing anonymously before, but never as Q.”

Hoback saw this as a tacit admission of guilt by Ron Watkins, who has been living in the Philippines, Japan, and the U.S. with his father Jim for the past three years.

As Hoback seemed to realize that Watkins may actually have been the wizard behind the curtain, Watkins smiled and cleared his throat before repeating: “Never as Q. I promise. I am not Q.”

While the scene isn’t proof of Watkins’ role, he also messaged his 150,000 subscribers on Telegram late Sunday: “Friendly reminder: I am not Q. Have a good weekend.”

However, the makers of the HBO documentary have concluded that Watkins is, in fact, at the center of the sprawling QAnon movement that has become central to far-right activities in the U.S., even to the point of having adherents elected to public office.

Indeed, Q has largely disappeared since Watkins announced his departure from 8kun on Dec. 8, reports VICE News.

Hoback’s conclusions are largely supported by other QAnon researchers.

“Some of the evidence has been out there for a long time, and some of it was evidence that Hoback either uncovered or put together,” Mike Rothschild, a QAnon researcher, wrote in the Daily Dot.

“But all of it leads back to the same place: that there are very few other people who could have and would have made the Q drops other than the person who ran the place where they were posted. QAnon can’t exist without the Watkinses, and 8kun without Q’s devotees may as well not exist.”

However, experts warn that the movement may have grown beyond the father-son team behind 8kun.

“Even if it was only Ron Watkins, the movement has grown far beyond one person or alias,” Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism, told Washington Post.

“It is now a global societal virus that has become a vessel for everything from [anti-vaccine] misinformation and coronavirus conspiracy theories to political agendas,” she added. But “everything Jim or Ron Watkins say should be taken with skepticism — even if that statement comes in the form of a bizarre ‘slip-up.’”