the tolfollowing is a cnn special report. on january 6, qanon came out of the shadows. what had started as aften onlin conspiracy theory had become a cult. and for some qanon followers, this was the day they had been waiting for. they made their presence known in the crowd of trump supporters in washington that day, and the mob stormed the capitol and qanon supporters were on the frontlines. this woman, ashley bab bot trid

to break through a door. she was shot to death by a police officer. she was a 14-year veteran. this was her at a trump rally in september. how does a veteran fall into a conspiracy cult? to understand what qanon is, you have to go down a rabbit hole, mixed with age-old antisemitic conspiracy theorys and resentments. some q believers liken it to a scene in the matrix, when the truth of the world is revealed to those who take the red pill. the truth, according to q, was that then president trump was a kind of messiah. some q followers believed he might have been a time traveler or being from another planet. they believe trump was secretly fighting a holy war against the deep state and a kabial of

celebrities and politicians, molesting children. it sounds ludicrous, but not if you believe in qanon. once you believe, you see the signs everywhere. [ inaudible ] >> those vague words about the storms spoken by then president trump, the white house october 5, 2017, are often cited as the beginning of what we now know as qanon. >> this at a time when iran was in the news. >> thank you, everybody. >> there was a lot of tension about relations between the united states and iran. so a lot of focus on that. and the president said something that was cryptic and strange

about a coming storm and this was the calm before the storm. the reporters asked sort of what some, mr. president? what are you talking about? and he was very sort of, you know, you'll see. wait and see. >> q really took off after this remark that president trump made. they interpreted that as a coded signal that something called the storm was coming. and the storm, in their minds, was this day of reckoning. >> and that became one of the foundational bits for q, which started posting on an image message board a few weeks later. >> on october 28, someone wrote in an online forum, known for anonymous or anon posts. >> this was not the first anon

that had claimed to hiring a government insider. but q-clearance patriots said basically i am a member of the trump administration. i have this q-clearance, this high level intelligence clearance, and i'm providing you with secret information about what's happening behind the scenes in washington. >> q claimed hillary clinton would soon be arrested and the military and national guard would be activated to quell mass riots. the post incorporated other conspiracy theorys that had been online for years. that high level democratic leaders and celebrities were all working to sex traffic children. >> they kidnap and traffic and k torture and kill children for fun, as part of a satanic ritual, but also in order to harvest a life extending chemical from their blood.

and that president trump was recruited by the military in order to bring this kabial down and bring its members to justice. and he's been secretly working to eliminate the deep state and to find and arrest and punish the members of this global kabal. >> elizabeth newman served in the department of homeland security, and said the claims were so preposterous, it was hard to take them seriously. >> i think most of us, you know, just on its face dismissed it, because a q-clearance has nothing to do with the things he was talking about. second of all, having been serving in multiple administrations, holding verycl working in the white house and department of homeland security, none of those conspiracies have my merit. they're completely baseless. none of us foresaw this catching fire the way that it did.

>> the false sex trafficking claims targeting hillary clinton actually dated back to 2016. the conspiracy theory that came to be known as pizza gate. >> after the wikileaks email hack in 2016, there was a database where people could just look through all of these emails that wikileaks dropped on the internet. among them john podesta and hillary clinton's campaign chair emails. among them, you could find references to a pizza shop. they started this rumor that comment was code for child abuse, and these emails that -- what sort of pizza should we order? these conspiracy they are yiss started saying pizza and cheese were code words referring back to child sex abuse. of course, there's no evidence of that. >> pizza gate is a conspiracy theory. you don't believe it? >> no, it's not.

pizza is a code word for child pornography. cheese pizza, child pour no- porno pornography. >> a man showed up with an ar-15, he claimed he was there to rescue the children. >> it ended up being handled where the police were able to subdue the suspect. he did have weapons on him. it could have turned violent. but the irony of that whole story was that pizza parlor didn't even have a basement. >> this to me is emblematic of how much real world danger the conspiracy theorys have caused. but at that moment people backed away from pizza gate which set the stage for new conspiracy theorys to take its place. that's where we get q. >> some of q's conspiracy claims

go much further back than pizza gate. they're based on age old antisemitic and racist beliefs. the idea of elites harvesting the blood of children was a notion the nazis pushed. they accused jews of doing the same thing. >> there are elements of this narrative you can find in crusades. even during the black death in europe centuries ago, you had conspiracy theorys then that said the jews were spiking the water with poison frogs and i will sard liz sards and you get same anti-semitism within q. so this is a very modern conspiracy theory because it's enabled by the social web. in other ways it goes to ancient biases and bigotries. >> over the months and years, q posted vague clues, often in the form of questions and riddles,

known as q-drops. followers would try to decipher the meaning of them. catch phrases became commonly used. >> when we go one, we go all. >> there's a rallying cry that is, where we go one, we go all, which is an expression of solidarity. >> they call each other patriots almost universally. >> there is this reference to the calm before the storm. this idea that the storm is this moment when a number of arrests will take place. >> everything is sort of in this like military-esque code. so, you know, potus is always used instead of calling him president trump. or hillary clinton in the qanon drops is never hillary clinton, she's always hrc. >> there's the great awakening, which refers to this period after the storm when q believers believe they will be a society of spiritual awakening. >> there are also things like, yeah, enjoy the show.

with the srt of like watch for fireworks in the coming days. >> similarly, justing the plan. >> trusting the plan is an important part of qanon belief, because there's sometimes the predictions don't pan out that q said happen and don't. >> it's not clear if anything q had predicted has come true. the first post said that hillary clinton was about to be arrested. q also predicted other dates when this nonexistent global kabal would exposed. there was supposed to be mass arrests of deep state actors and martial law, all fantasy. but it didn't seem to matter to followers. they either ignored the inconsistencies or explained them away. >> q made reference to d-5. that was interpreted as a sign that something big was going to happen on december 5th. some report was going to be unveiled that unmasked the deep state conspiracy.

and then turned out to be the day of george h.w. bush's funeral. and so qanon believers convinced them severals that d-5 was a reference to the fact that on december 5, at this funeral, when all these world leaders, including former presidents and people who are allegedly part of this kabal would be in attendance in the same building, that is when the mass arrests happened. obviously, that didn't happen. there were no mass arrests. so instead of admitting like, we were wrong, maybe this d-5 thing didn't happen, they said maybe it's december 7 actually. so therefore, the real date is sometime in the future. and that's constantly happening with qanon. >> so this has been one of the more mind melting aspects of reporting on q for me that you talk to people who are true believers. >> we are q. >> and you can confront them with reality. you know, evidence of here's what happened. we both saw this with our own eyes. why do you still believe?

and there's just an utter rejection of reality and a total faith in q, with no sort of attention or regard to the fact. >> this man says he was a true believer in qanon until about a year and a half ago. he explains the passion many q followers still have. >> this is to them, they believe this. and this is not like a battle between, you know, marxists and capitalists, between authoritarians and libertarians. this is a battle between good and evil for them. the kabala is evil. they don't want to just control you or kill you, they want to take your soul. they want your soul, your family's soul, your daughter's soul, your son's soul, your brother's, mother's, whatever. they want it for all eternity. like the stakes for them could literally not be more existential. well, imagine if someone

believed that, imagine if you believed that, what would you do? what wouldn't you do? >> at the center of that belief is donald trump. to qanon he's a savior. they believe he supports them through hidden signals and signs when he's out of public. the former president did all he could to keep their beliefs alive. >> i do know they are very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard. t-mobile is upgrading its network

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let me ask you about qanon. it is this theory that democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and you are the savior of that. now, can you once and for all state that that is completely not true? >> so -- >> can you disavoi qw qanon in entirety. >> i know nothing about qanon. >> i just told you. >> that doesn't necessarily make it a fact. i know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard. >> this was president trump on nbc news this past october. he repeatedly claimed he didn't know anything about qanon, but he also praised them, giving q followers encouragement. these q supporters in arizona cheered on president trump's words to nbc.

many q followers believe trump is on their side and signals his support for them in public with hidden messages and signs. >> so qanon believers study all of trump's public appearances with this extreme rigger, looking for these signs that he supports them, that he's listening to them, that he's sending them coded signals. every time he says the number 17 or uses it in any way, they take that as a sign that he's talking to them, because q is the 17th letter of the alphabet. >> 17. >> i heard qanon believers saying trump makes these signs with his hand when he talks that looks like he's doing a q or they'll look at a pink tie and say oh, pink is hospital code for a child being abducted. so clearly he's sending a signal about this global cabal of pedophiles and sex traffickers.

>> this former qanon follower says many believer's faith in trump is limitless. do you believe that president trump was working to attack this global cabal of satan worshipping pedophiles? you believed he was actually deeply involved? >> oh, yeah, of course i believed that. i believed that he was an avatar. there are people who believe he's a time traveler. there are people who believe he's jesus. so, yeah. yeah. 100%. >> president trump clearly knew qanon followers supported him. he said as much in august of 2020 when asked about them by a reporter. >> i understand they like me very much. which i appreciate. >> it's hard for me to envision

that nobody at any point briefed him. problem something the fbi director would normally brief a president on, and here's the key, especially since in their movement, he's a mess ianic figure for them. this idea that he's the savior, he will fix things. he's going to hold hillary clinton accountable, and make sure that the children are saved. so i'm looking at this and saying, we need to make sure he's aware so that he's a little careful with his speech so it doesn't unnecessarily rile them up. >> how did a conspiracy cult based on lies and bizarre accusations spread so fast? it wouldn't have happened without the help of social media. >> in earlier times, the main place you would find conspiracy theorys is letters to editors of newspapers. you'll hear people arguing that the weather is controlled by the

government or aliens have arrived and living among us. and now just because of the mega scale of platforms like facebook and to a lesser extent twitter, the degree to which this was able to spread on a global scale, it could not have happened without the social web. >> the way in which it went main stream is they turned these concepts into memes, and things that were very shareable on sites like facebook and twitter, that capture people's interest, there's a reason they call it a rabbit hole. so the cause, in particular, save the children. they took that slogan and co-opted it and made it feel comfortable for a main stream person to be like, yes, i want to help save the children. they take one click and learn some things and click another and do some searches. and all of a sudden they've spent hours and gone down this rabbit hole to a place where they've been exposed to some

darker theorys that are not as simple as the meme they may have initially found. >> experts say the save the children hash tag proved for a powerful recruitment tool for qanon. save the children rallies have been seen all over the country. [ inaudible ] >> we're just trying to save the children. >> qanon spread was also made possible because of the cryptic nature of the so-called q-drops. they're vague, presented as puzzles to devoed. >> there are these q-drop apps that people use to get alerted every time. and immediately, they'll take screen shots and poest them in facebook groups and chat rooms and try to decipher it to figure out how it connects to the larger qanon narrative. >> these clues that q leaves are

written in really ambiguous, cryptic terms. very riddle like, which is part of what people are drawn to. people want to do the research. you hear this again and again. people want to do their own research and pour over these clues and interpret them. >> this is an example of a q-drop from september of 2018. >> it starts with an all-caps line that says panic in d.c. then it says, ll talking equals truth reveal tarmac, d.c. so this is basically a reference to loretta lynch, the former attorney general under president obama, in some sort of truth that q was saying was revealed in a conversation with bill clinton, tarmac. then it continues, ll talking equals truth revealed hrc email case. comey is james comey, the former fbi director.

ll talking truth equals truth reveal, read hrc case. fisa brings down the house. when do birds sing? q. >> so as with most q-drops, this one doesn't have a clear hint or narrative. it's coded. it's written in this cryptic language. but basically, the message that people take from this is there was some nefarious link between loretta lynch, the former attorney general, this clinton email case, john brennan, the former cia director, and a plot against president trump. when do birds sing is a reference to when do people confess to their crimes? when does this storm happen and this cabal come crashing down? so when you're part of qanon,

you are not just absorbing things that people tell you. you are out there, you are digging, you are trying to put together pieces of this puzzle. and then you are congratulated for finding stuff. it's almost like a video game. >> a video game based on lies, played by hundreds of thousands of followers around the world. >> one of the things i learned spending time in qanon facebook groups and chat rooms, this is really social for them. this is a kind of collaborative, truth seeking effort, and it's a community. they make friends with other qanon believers. they congratulate each other on their birthdays and wish each other happy holidays and talk about how their grand kids are coming to visit. for a lot of beliefs, this is their primary social life. so they get more out of it than just politics. they get affirmation, they get friendships, they get meaningful missions that they feel they can

be part of. >> what surprised me was the number of people i met who, yes, they were pro trump, but more than that, they were driving a sense of spiritual satisfaction from q. there was a lot of -- i heard from people, they felt a sense of peace or serenity in their lives they didn't have before. they started getting into q, and that's what led me to understand this isn't a political movement. it suspect only a conspiracy theory, but really it takes on the contours of a baby religion born on the internet. it raises questions sort of about like what is a religion versus what is a cult versus what a conspiracy theory versus what's a mass delusion? and i think you see pieces of all of those things in q. he says he was a qanon follower for nearly two years, but he says after watching q's predictions repeatedly fail and

realizing trump's so-called signals to qanon weren't signals at all, he's now realized it was all made up. >> i would say that q is kind of like jesus, and trump is kind of like the god figure, right? for me personally, the part that was really appealing was that this kind of gave me some joy, a sense of optimism. you know, i was looking at the world and it was just so chaotic, everything was so negative. bad things happening all the time. and i just -- the idea that we could somehow make the world a better place for all of humanity, just really gave me a sense of optimism. so that was the irony of the situation that my life was so sad and i was so sad that i was looki ing to q for joy, as wells a sense of belonging, just like any cult. they prey on the vulnerable and disaffected. that's exactly what happened. >> considering some believe they were fighting to save children,

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q is -- is a -- a real

thing. >> they're killing our children and using their blood and stuff. >> the bizarre and false theory that a global cabal of satan worshipping democratic leaders and celebrity rsz trafficking in children and harvesting their blood is at the core of the qanon conspiracy theory. but there are many other farout claims made by q followers. >> it's branched in many different directions. now you're find qanon believing talking about everything from the illuminati to area 51, and they believe they are in power. >> i heard everyone from the idea that john f. kennedy jr. was alive to john f. kennedy, jr. was assassinated by hillary

clinton. >> she's involved with a known satanic witch. >> you may recognize this guy, a qanon shamen. this is him at a rally in arizona. his name is jacob chancely. he's been seen at other trump rallies, as well. >> freedom! >> on january 6, he was front and center in the attack on the capitol. he's been arrested and charged for his aregged role in the riots. prosecutors say he obstructed a police officer and say he told the fbi that vice president mike pence was a child trafficking traitor. his lawyer says he wasn't violent and didn't cross police lines. >> we have evidence that this is a dangerous conspiracy theory. on january 6, when we saw people brandishing q signs and perpetrating q's message as they stormed the u.s. capitol, there was evidence before that, that q was dangerous.

but it is abundantly clear this is a dangerous movement. >> this man is doug jenson. he was also arrested, and charged for his alleged role in the attack. he's wearing a q shirt. the motto, trust the plan. >> we have seen lots of incidents of violence and law breaking related to qanon and inspired by qanon. there have been murders, kidnappings, threats against lawmakers in the name of q. >> in march 2019, this man allegedly shot and killed a reputed mafia member in new york city. he told his lawyer he was a member of the deep state working to bring down president trump. he flashed a q symbol he drew on his hand at his arraignment. he's been charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. another q follow caused a standoff near the hoover dam in

2018. he pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge. some in the republican party have spoken out against qanon, others seem to be trying to appeal to its followers. in august, the texas gop started using the slogan, we are the storm. the texas gop denies any connection to qanon but continued to use the term, even after the attack on the capitol. nearly two dozen republicans across the country have engaged with the qanon conspiracy ran for office in the 2020 election. margorie taylor greene is from georgia. >> now, q is a patriot. he's someone that is very much loves his country. he's on the same page as us. he is very pro trump, okay. he appears to have connections at the highest levels, all right? he's posted many things that seem to verify that he is the real deal. >> lauren bobert is from colorado. >> everything i heard of q, i

hope that this is real. >> both women are now serving in congress. boebert has said she's not a follower and green has tried to distance herself. >> we've had conspiracy theorists in government before, but i think qanon is different in that it's a movement that has now become violent and insurrectionist, and that has shown it can cause real offline damage. we know that many of them don't accept that joe biden is the legitimate president. we know many of them may never accept that. and so to have millions of people out there following an ideology like that, including elected officials who are taking their cues not from their conspich sents or the general public, but from random people posting conspiracy theorys on internet message boards is pretty worrisome. >> and q still is, at this point, an anonymous message

board poster. it is not known who he or she, is or even if it's a single person or foreign government attempting to sew division. >> q is a movement, okay? speak for yourself. it doesn't tell you to follow one leader. you can think about what you want with q. but i follow the facts and i follow information, and i think for myself as an american. >> the really interesting thing for me, i talk to a lot of qanon believers who say it doesn't matter who q is. the identity of this person or even whether it is the same person all along, seems to have become secondary in this case. it's sort of -- they're curious who it is, but they would almost rather not know because it allows them to preserve the illusion. >> the more people i talk to who really deeply believed in it just didn't care. like what if you find out tomorrow it's a hoax and the person who is q admits it's made up? i heard again and again from people who said it doesn't

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what's going on with tom hanks? >> you guys want me to explain everything today, huh? dude, it's all suspicion. that's suspicion. >> how would you know if tom hanks -- >> tom hanks is just one of dozens of celebrities that q supp supporters accused of being part of the so-call global cabal. there's no evidence, of course, no reason to believe these sick claims. that doesn't matter to beliefs in the cult of qanon. >> you have him on your side. you're probably a pedophile. how did he get to that position of power? >> some of the celebrities attacked by qanon have been critical of president trump. others are just thought to be democrats. >> they will turn these people into enemies and they will viciously harass people. once they fixate on a target, they go on social media, they swarm that target. i've been the target of it. it's happened to a lot of reporters, political pundits,

celebrities, and it's very unpleasant to be on the receiving end of that. >> q first posted about me november 5, 2017, asking the question, who is a. cooper? this came two days after i was on the air reporting about indictments in the russia investigation. once mentioned by q, the followers of this conspiracy cult went to work, inventing a bizarre and crazy false story about my life. according to q followers, my mom was a satanist. they pointed to this photo taken when i was about 6 years old. that mexican folk art is the virgin mary with christ, but they said it was satanic and the christ figure was a child being sacrificed. they also claimed i had been molested. it's an old vanderbilt estate in asheville, north carolina, that

either i or my mom had been to. the cia allegedly trained me as a cia agent infiltrating the media as part of a program called operation mocking bird. the confirmation, according to q supporters, the necklace my mom wore in that photo looked like it could be from guatemala. the cia supported a coup in guatemala in 1954. i was also called a pedophile, flight logs to jeffrey epstein's island appeared online with my mine and other people. it's all made up, but supporters seem to believe it. this man was a believer until june 2019. did you at the time believe that democrat, high level democrats and celebrities were worshipping

satan, drinking the blood of children? >> anderson, i thought you did that. and i would like to apologize for that right now. i apologize for thinking you ate babies. but, yeah -- >> but you actually believed that i was drinking the blood of children? >> yes, i did. >> was it something about me that made you think that? >> q specifically mentioned you, and he mentioned you very early on. he mentioned you by name, and from there, he also talked about like for example, the family. i'm going to be honest, like people still talk about that to this day. there were posts about that just four days ago. some people thought you were a robot? >> you believed this? >> i didn't believe that. i one stage believed that qanon was part of military intelligence, which is what he

says. and on top of that, the people behind him were a group of fifth dimensional, interdimensional extra terrestrial bipedal aliens. i was so far down in this conspiracy theory black hole that i was picking and choosing whatever i wanted to believe in. >> i tried to engage with people that try to contact me. there's no rational way to, you know, to prove you haven't committed a crime. >> there's nothing you can say. whatever you do or don't do will be more proof of your guilt, right? but the thing is, this is not really about you in their mind. this is about them. this is about their internal fears and internal projections and their internal lack of control over their own lives. >> he says he no longer believes

in qanon, but there are hundreds of thousands, some even suggest millions of others, who are still trusting the plan. >> i've met qanon beliefs who are young, who are old, who are male, who are female, who are white, who are non-white, who are former democrats and life-long republicans, rich, poor. i mean, this is not some fringe movement any more. this is a mass movement of people from every walk of life. >> although people continue to believe in q, now that president trump has gone from the white house. and nothing q had promised has come to pass. that's next.

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when president trump left the white house on january 20th, many qanon beliefs were stunned. nothing they had been promised had come to pass. we were promised arrests, exposures, military regime, classified documents, where is it, one online message read? another wrote, i'm scared, feeling sick to my stomach.

but i'm holding the line still. >> it was phenomenal to watch what was happening online. there was a complete meltdown of qanon followers. there was this belief while they weren't able to stop the election from being certified by the congress, what was going to happen next was president trump was going to declare martial law at the last minute, he was going to issue a national emergency broadcast alert, that electricity was likely to go down, water was likely to go down, so everybody needed to stockpile food and water and be able to survive in the winter for a couple of weeks. and then president trump would rightly take his place for his second term as president, and there would be no president biden. >> i joseph biden, jr., do solemnly swear. >> but as we've seen, false predictions don't deter them. the conspiracy theory beliefs simply evolve. now some claim that trump is

still secretly running the government. one wrote, anything that happens in the next four years is actually president trump's doing. others are suggesting president biden might be working for q. >> a lot will maintain they misinterpreted the signals. the real august nation will happen in march instead of january. joe biden is one of the good guys. like, did trump use biden to take down the global cabal? they're looking for all these symbols. on joe biden's first day in office, he signed 17 consecutive orders. 1 17 is the magic q number. so some of them interpreted that he was secretly on their side. >> there's some people that believe that joe biden is now part of the plan? >> yeah. >> he's actually working with q? >> yep. and that was the plan all along.

>> former qanon belief said he's seen other followers give up their online postings. and now social media companies decided to crack down. twitter has banned more than 70,000 accounts for promoting qanon. facebook says since august, they've deleted more than 18,000 profiles and 27,000 instagram accounts for violating its policies against qanon. but qanon is still out this, still a conspiracy cult with die hard followers looking for a sense of belonging and a way to take action. some experts believe q followers may migrate to other fringe extremist groups. >> here's the dangerous part. the white supremists and the anti-government extremists started to realize this was likely to happen after january 6. they weren't able to stop biden from being approved by the congress and so there was this disheartening moment for many of trump supporters, as well as

qanon supporters. so you started to see the white supremacists come up with recruitment techniques and started posting on their sites to educate other white supremacists how to approach a disheartened qanon adherent. they have to feed their grievance, make sure they put blame on the system, on the government, on trump itself, so they're looking to recruit. >> the hard thing about leaving qanon is once you started to see the world in the way that qanon followers see the world, as a series of lies being told by elites, it was very hard for them to trust in sort of main stream authorities ever again. they sort of have this idea that the knowledge that they're being fed is not real and that they have to go looking for their own sources of truth. >> there have always been conspiracy theorys, but never before have they been able to

spread so quickly. just a few clicks can take you down a rabbit hole and dangerous beliefs. what qanon shows us, even the most ludicrous and disturbing ideas can find an audience online. and in the real world, the result can be tragic. >> i'm willing to die for my country and my family and my friends. ♪ ♪ hey malcolm, your podcasts are on audible right? and your new audiobook. with everything from mel robbins to blake griffin, is there a more fascinating place than audible? no. and i've done the research. of course you have. audiobooks, podcasts, audible originals. all in one place. ♪ it is love, love, love that makes it all worthwhile♪ ♪and it is love, love, love♪

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the following is a cnn special report. our country has had enough. >> taking our freedoms, locking us down, and turn thing country is a blasted socialist republic. and that is not right! that's what i'm doing here. >> you'll never take back our country with weakness. >> that's what we're doing, fighting back. >> you have to show strength and you have to be strong. >> usa! >> they are the faces of insurrection. >> i think we should have gone on in and yanked our senators out by the hair of the head and drug 'em out and said, no more