In the 6th and final episode of the HBO documentary series Q: Into The Storm, Cullen Hoback explores who was behind Q, and in that interview, 8kun (formerly 8chan) admin Ron Watkins inadvertently unveiled himself as the person who may have been behind Q. Both Jim and Ron Watkins have made noises to the QAnon cult, as evidenced by Ron’s constant promotion of the Big Lie.
[SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details of the 6th episode of the HBO documentary Q: Into The Storm.]
Drew Harwell and Craig Timberg at Washington Post:
The identity of Q, the supposed top-secret government operative and prophet of the extremist ideology QAnon, has for years been a fiercely debated mystery. But a possible slip-up in a new documentary suggests the answer was always the most obvious one: Ron Watkins, the longtime administrator of the message board 8kun, the conspiratorial movement’s online home.
Most major QAnon researchers have long speculated that Watkins had written many of the false and cryptic posts alleging that former president Donald Trump was waging war against an elite international cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Watkins has long denied his involvement, saying he was merely a neutral backroom operator of the site and never a participant.
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For some researchers, the admission does not resolve all lingering questions about Q. Some argue persuasively that, while Ron Watkins probably knows who is behind QAnon, the account could be driven by more than one person, or a team of writers crafting messages for public display.
On Sunday, HBO aired the final two episodes of the six-part documentary series Q: Into the Storm, in which filmmaker Cullen Hoback explores the cancerous QAnon conspiracy theory and attempts to get to the bottom of who exactly is behind it. QAnon is an internet-fueled movement consisting of people who believe that pedophiles control the Democratic Party, Hollywood, and other major institutions, and that former President Donald Trump has been leading a covert effort in conjunction with the military to have these perverts arrested and executed. Many followers also believe that members of this cabal are satanists who practice cannibalism and that Trump is using UFOs to fight them. The conspiracy theory has been linked to multiple instances of violence and has torn families apart. The FBI considers QAnon to be a domestic terrorism threat, and at least 34 of its adherents participated in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
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Why does Hoback now suspect Ron?
In the sixth and final episode of the series, Hoback presents his case for why he thinks the younger Watkins is Q. He mostly relies on circumstantial evidence that he’s collected through shooting the documentary, some of it compelling, some of it not. Much of it boils down to Ron’s inconsistent statements; he would one day seem to know Q’s intricate motivations and inner circle, and then he’d claim to know nothing about Q the next. Ron and his father also spend buckets of money on their hobby of collecting luxury watches and pens—Q has been known to post pictures of expensive-looking watches and pens in an attempt to prove that he’s in secure locations like Camp David. The piece of evidence that Hoback presents as the closest thing he has to a smoking gun is an apparent slip-up that Ron makes in an interview near the end. In his final conversation with Hoback, Ron seems to admit that he had been anonymously directing the analysis and research that 8chan users were conducting based on Q’s cryptic messages, even though he’d previously claimed to not be involved with any of the content on the site beyond his responsibilities as administrator. Ron, after briefly discussing his role in spreading conspiracy theories about voter fraud following the 2020 election, says, “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.” It’s deeply suspicious, but not quite enough to pin him as Q.
Hoback does admit that his theory “lacked definitive proof.” It seems clear, though, that the Watkinses have an overwhelming amount of control over the Q account and at the very least have the ability to commandeer Q’s account at any time and post whatever they please. If they aren’t Q themselves, they likely have some sort of contact with Q. It’s also possible that multiple people author Q’s posts.
From the 04.04.2021 edition of HBO’s Q: Into The Storm:
It turns out that 8kun admin Ron Watkins may very well be Q, as unveiled in the Q: Into The Storm finale.