Every 17 years, a great awakening occurs.
Rising from the earth,
the once dormant cicada will metamorphosize to its final form.
Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals.
To find them, we have devised a test.
There is a message hidden in this image.
Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us.
Good luck.
3301.
Cicada 3301,
it's known as the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age,
and it dates back to 2012.
Now, like QAnon,
Cicada 3301 originated with a post on 4chan,
and it prompted an unknown number of internet denizens
to try and solve an increasingly difficult series of puzzles.
Let me give you an example.
If you took this first message, put it into a text-only editor,
you would see a hidden clue, "Caesar says,"
followed by a seemingly random code.
And that code actually references a famous cryptography tool
called a Caesar Cipher.
Plug in the code, and it would produce a web address.
You have done well.
This would eventually lead you to a phone number
that provided GPS coordinates.
Multiply all three of these numbers together to find the next step.
And this is where Cicada would transform.
Howdy, folks, this one is just outside the subway here.
What had started as just a game on the internet
had crawled out from behind the screen,
sending participants from around the globe out into the real world
in search of the next clue.
No one knows the true purpose of Cicada.
Was it just an amusing game?
Was it a recruitment test for a government agency
or a way of collecting brilliant individuals for some secret society?
But what we do know is that someone named Thomas Schoenberger
stepped out from behind the shadows, claiming to be involved.
Thomas was a prolific composer and pianist.
In fact, he wrote the music you're listening to right now.
But his philosophies behind Cicada were less about a fun game
and more geared towards altering society as a whole.
Thomas requested that rather than appear on camera,
we use a more suitable representation.
Cicada instructs the solvers to self reflect.
Interior renaissance is more profound than external revolution.
You know, we're only using 10 or 11 percent of our brains.
Imagine what it would be to use 30 or 40 percent.
Cicada's unique formula
of collecting like-minded individuals through an internet game
attracted interest from others
looking for innovative ways to awaken the masses.
It seems one of those people was an Anon
who goes by the name Courtney Tubbs,
better known as IWillRedPillYou.
She was in a chat room and asking me,
"What do you mean by this puzzle?"
As you may recall,
Courtney Tubbs had worked as a writer for The Goldwater,
a website owned by the Watkinses.
And these conversations with Thomas,
they took place right before Q got started,
just as Cicada was creating puzzles
featuring Alice in Wonderland falling down a rabbit hole.
A phrase repeated dozens of times in the earliest Q drops.
Courtney, she was watching everything, reporting back to Codemonkey.
Q: INTO THE STORM
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Hey, how're you doing?
- This is my new place. - Oh, great.
You should have got 16Q.
It's right across the way there. Like, it's right there.
In the wake of three mass shootings all associated with 8chan,
Fred had been trying to destroy the very monster that he had created.
I think 8chan is a blight on the internet, on society.
I think they are totally incapable of running it in a way that's positive.
8chan was where the Christchurch shooter had found an audience
to celebrate his white supremacist message.
But there was an interesting twist here.
New Zealand had commissioned an expansive study,
and it found that the Christchurch shooter had been radicalized
not on 8chan but by the algorithms on YouTube and Facebook.
Which led him to increasingly extreme content and personalities.
Even though the report's findings showed
that 8chan wasn't quite as culpable as originally thought,
Fred wasn't ready to let up on his war against Ron and Jim's site.
It affects my life in a big way
each time one of these shootings happens.
And they don't give a fuck about how it affects me, you know.
And look, maybe that's very narcissistic, whatever, you know.
But not only do they not care about me.
They don't care about all the people dying.
I just want to be done with this.
And look, if they shut it down, I have no reason to go after them.
Do you feel like if he changed the name that you would stop,
or would that not be enough?
I might. I might stop, yeah.
Is it mostly that 8chan ties back to you?
Yes. Yes.
Up until now, it seemed that Fred had been hell-bent on destroying 8chan.
But if all he really needed was for the site's name to be changed,
that seemed like something the 8chan guys might agree to.
I personally feel it's a religious mission for him.
A crusade.
And nothing we do is going to be able to stop him.
Until he satisfies all the conditions of his mission.
So, the name is gonna be changed, that's guaranteed.
And he's completely out of the picture.
Right. Like a fresh start.
That's what he wants, so hopefully, that works out. That'd be nice.
The next day, Tom set up a meeting with Fred to broker a peace deal.
It had been almost a year since they'd seen each other in person.
- It's definitely been a while. - Yeah, I know.
We saw each other three shootings ago.
Alright, I'll let you talk.
I don't know how much we actually disagree.
I'm happy as long as it's not 8chan anymore
or on that domain or on related domains.
Yeah, it has to be put to bed because as a brand because...
- Doesn't it? - Well, yeah.
If the users are going to move to a new site,
we have to let them know that the old one is dead
so that they give up on it.
Thank you.
I'm just glad that 8chan's not coming back.
Whatever you name it, my name's not on it.
I have nothing to do with it. It's like absolution.
Yeah, I think none of us want to be back here again,
rehashing the same drama.
Right. What's the new site gonna be called?
- I don't know yet. - You don't know? Really?
It's down to a top five.
- Yeah? Can I know the top three? - You can't. I'm sworn to secrecy.
I would put them all on Twitter. Let's just be honest.
Even though I was on a crusade against 8chan,
it's nice talking to you. See, we still get along.
Sorry.
You okay?
It went down the wrong pipe.
We should get a selfie also. You want to have a selfie with me on your...
- We can do that. - Really?
All right, cool. Can I see?
Oh, great. I can't wait to put that on my account.
Jim has already had this plan to attack.
But now, it's not necessary.
Hello.
It seems like things are settled now, and I want to keep it that way.
So, I'm just kind of pumping the brakes.
As long as Fred stays quiet, then Jim should follow suit.
Five hours later
What's the new site going to be called?
- I don't know yet. - You don't know?
- Can I know the top three? - You can't.
You know I would put them all on Twitter.
I think he recorded the entire conversation.
Wait, Fred tweeted out the conversation? The whole thing?
Maybe.
Cicada 3301 attracted more than the likes of an employee at 8chan.
It seemed another individual had been in touch with Thomas,
looking for inspiration.
Tracy Beanz, she was asking me a lot of questions about Cicada.
I don't know where to look. Hi.
Tracy Beanz was the very first QTuber on the scene.
Let's just do the Q video that I was gonna do today. I'm gonna flip you.
Considered by her followers to be the, quote, "Godmother of the movement."
We are Q! We love you so much.
And her support did not go unnoticed
by Trump's embattled former National Security Advisor,
General Michael Flynn.
I could tell she was taking notes.
I'm suspecting that she was giving it to General Flynn.
Flynn was well versed in the art of irregular warfare.
It seemed he understood how to tap social media influencers,
even giving them a catchy codename.
We have an army of digital soldiers.
I think that Flynn was watching and thinking,
"Wow, you know, this Cicada thing is taking off."
Okay, this is what we need to do for this digital soldier model.
It's a really important clue.
Tracy Beanz, she's communicating with me
and asking me questions,
and she's running to General Flynn six weeks before the launch of Q.
DORAL, FLORIDA
However, Tracy Beanz wasn't the only QTuber
who may have been exchanging information with ex-military sources.
Right now, we're in the midst of a civil war.
It's a cold civil war, but it's happening as we speak.
Craig's most constant source was Nick Know,
a self-proclaimed Benghazi whistleblower and Air Force veteran.
It's gonna be Patriots against
whatever this fake, patriotic movement is on the left.
And yeah. We're gonna murder them all.
I love how you even smirked at that.
Nick had been feeding Craig intel for months
and reinforcing that Q was legit.
It is a psychological operation that is ran at the highest levels,
and the reason that it's important that it's anonymous
at this message board...
Start over.
So, the reason that they use the anonymous message...
Nick was representing the interests of a retired Army Major General
who had worked hard to maintain his influence
since returning to civilian life.
I'm joined live by Paul Vallely. He's a retired U.S. Army Major General.
Do you believe that military people, they should get behind Donald Trump?
Yes, I do because he will hire the best people
and put them in the staff in the Pentagon and Intelligence.
In addition to being an early and ardent supporter of Donald Trump,
General Vallely had connections to Steve Bannon,
Michael Flynn and Jerome Corsi.
Before, we had a weak president...
He's even been openly hostile towards the Federal Government.
A gentleman said,
"If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?"
And I said, yes, I will.
I'll surround the Whitehouse, and I'll surround the Capitol building.
And I don't want to be criticized as to starting a revolution,
but I'd certainly head it if we had to.
And perhaps most importantly, back in the '80s,
Vallely basically wrote the book on military psyops,
short for psychological operation.
A psyop is a non-violent military campaign
that aims to manipulate a population's thinking
by hijacking information channels, or more simply,
pushing a false narrative to the masses in hopes of making it true.
To try to get the message out to President Trump...
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna play this. It's going to take about 20 minutes.
For General Vallely's next campaign, Nick was here to plant a seed,
one that might harm Joe Biden's chances at the presidency.
I'm putting together a bipartisan coalition to go to Iran
to discuss Bin Laden's transfer to the United States.
Nick claimed to have an audio recording
that proved Osama Bin Laden was still alive
and that the Obama administration had faked his death.
So CIA Director stops them.
They wanted to hand over Bin Laden to us, just, "Oh, here you go."
The State Department cooked up this plan.
They said, "Nah, we're gonna have him...
You could put him in Pakistan
so we can kill him and get re-elected, basically."
Nick said that he would try to put me in touch with General Vallely.
I wanted to know more about the military or ex military's involvement
and interest in Q.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Your guys's best bet, and this is being, totally playing it straight,
Qchan I think is the first one.
Okay, yeah, he's just, like, tweet storming the whole conversation.
So, this has become a press release now.
Yeah. Fred has turned into a reporter
announcing 8chan is dead and not coming back.
I just know that's gonna make things blow up.
We're dealing with a lot of volatile personalities,
and they're all crisscrossing.
It seemed Fred was trying to scoop the 8chan guys
in an effort to both confuse Q's followers
and to thwart the launch of their rebranded site,
the name of which they had hidden from him with good reason.
8chan would become 8kun,
and this graphic they created, you know, of a storm,
wasn't exactly a subtle reference.
It seemed that they were angling to preserve just one community, QAnon.
But the name change did have an effect on the normies of the world.
I actually just got a text last night.
"Hey, is 8chan still online?" You won.
Yeah, but I feel like I didn't totally win.
I mean, I think I'm winning.
For me, the name change, it's not different enough.
Like, people don't have any idea where to go.
They don't know that it exists anymore.
Timothy McLaughlin of Wired definitely knows that.
Sure, yeah. But, you know...
Drew Harwell, Washington Post, definitely knows.
But in terms of the average citizen,
who was associating 8chan with all of these shootings
and with you, they think it's gone.
But if there's another shooting, McLaughlin, Harwell,
Roose, Kevin Roose, New York Times, they are gonna be writing the articles.
They know that this is all bullshit.
And they are gonna write it exactly how I'm saying it,
that 8chan and 8kun are basically alter egos.
- Fred, you got what you asked for. - Yes.
That doesn't mean to stop asking. If I'm winning, why should I stop?
Fred started a new round of attacks
that were repelling service providers left and right.
And even though the 8kun guys had a new name,
they couldn't seem to get the site online.
We offered the olive branch to Fred, and we met him in good faith.
And then he continued to attack us from many angles.
Fred even went after the domain registrars
where Jim might have purchased 8kun.com or 8kun.org
and pushed them to revoke ownership.
It's really causing a lot of problems for us.
Literally... Oh, we almost died.
What he's doing is...
Literally, what he's doing is the textbook definition of libel.
Trump talks about it in the Art of the Deal.
You always give them the easy way out first.
They don't take it, then you fuck 'em up.
TOKYO, JAPAN
One month later
Just look at the camera and do poses.
After months of battling with Fred
and tirelessly searching for a service provider, 8kun had won.
They finally managed to get online.
It's our first break in three months, so... Yeah!
The site looked and functioned basically the same as 8chan
as if it was ported from the '90s
except the only people interested enough to stick around
were mostly QAnons.
This is perfect.
- Okay. Nice to meet you, Reina. - Nice to meet you.
This Reina girl's cute. A little chubby but cute.
- Aren't you satisfied? - No.
I'm never sat... It's like... Do heroin users get satisfied?
Wait, so has Q posted?
Yeah. Q posted a few hours after we went live.
- So, he didn't waste any time? - No, he was immediately...
I couldn't even see the website, and he's already posting.
Due to some technical difficulties,
it was basically impossible for users to post on 8kun
during its first few days back online. Yet somehow, Q managed to.
He could tell the website's not running well,
but he still went out of his way to make posts
probably to calm everybody or whatever he's doing.
I don't know. I don't... I'm not Q. I don't know who Q is.
No idea... I don't even... I barely even follow it. Honestly.
After three months of being silenced,
you'd expect that Q would've come up with a backup plan,
some way to move on from its secure trip code,
for a more stable platform from elsewhere,
but Q stayed put, remaining loyal to the Watkinses.
It just seems so weird to me that Q would tie himself so hard to 8chan.
This is why I think Q and 8chan are much deeper connected.
There were also some other noticeable connections
that were more on the surface.
- Do you like my watch? - What's this watch?
This is a watch that Ronald sold me.
One bitcoin gets you one Omega Seamaster.
Not that I'm gonna be doing any diving.
Expensive watches show up in multiple Q drops
often accompanied by a fountain pen and the phrase, "The clock is ticking."
Anons believe that this was further proof
of Q's close proximity to Trump.
And he told me it's a great way to move money across borders
'cause you're allowed to wear it on the plane, and it's worth, whatever.
Not only would he wear watches.
Sometimes he would pull out pocket watches and show them to me.
I don't want to sound like I'm crazy,
but when I saw the pen and the watch,
I was like, "Oh my god, they're speaking right to me!"
Every day is a great day when you have a brand-new Marlin pen.
Do you think if Ron is actually Q that he would ever admit it to me?
I think he wants the credit deep down.
He wants to-people to think that he's smart and he pulled something off.
They can definitely pull off a secret project for this long.
They do have a lot of experience playing these games.
KEEP AMERICA GREAT!
Look at that beautiful baby. Look at that beautiful baby.
Wow! What a baby! What a baby!
Throughout 2019, Q had been slowly making its way into the mainstream.
And now, its ideas were ready for the limelight.
Remember that first AMPFest?
You could put a few different pieces together, you may understand now...
The 2018 New Right gathering that felt more like a middle school talent show.
Stand up, stand up! Stand up, stand up!
AMPFest had become the new face of the republican party.
It drew in more than a thousand people
with Q-friendly speakers uniting behind a key issue.
First and foremost is the obstacle of internet censorship.
All sharing the stage with Donald Trump, Junior.
I typed in my handle. I came up on page six.
If they can do that to me, who can't they,
and more importantly, who aren't they doing it to?
U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.
Hey, this is Cullen.
After a few days of phone tag...
How'd your game of golf go?
...I was finally able to get in touch with General Vallely.
I'm trying to figure out what I can ask you
or what you can say about, the QAnon operation?
Part of the whole QAnon thing is
there also is this something they call the Army of Northern Virginia.
Okay.
This is composed of about 820 military intelligence people.
They're the primary intel source for the president.
Because he doesn't have faith in the CIA or the FBI.
And Q gets a lot of the information from the Army of Northern Virginia.
Is the Army of Northern Virginia,
is that something that's a known entity?
- It's unknown. - Okay, alright.
Except for a few of us.
QAnon's not working as part of that, just getting information through it?
- Right. - Okay.
I run my own intelligence network.
We're all working together on some things, so it all ties in.
I mean, it's not like we're exclusive.
It's all part of the same genre if that makes sense.
A private network of ex-military guys
curating intel for the president and his anonymous buddy, Q,
it sounded like something out of a Tom Clancy novel.
Well, I have eyes on the ground that work with me.
The problem with someone like Vallely
is it's hard to tell if they're feeding you false information
in hopes that you'll later repeat it as fact,
running a psyop on you.
But it was clear that Vallely's group was coordinating
with a number of other networks all actively supporting Q.
And these groups tend to intersect with other groups
that have similar ambitions.
Groups like Cicada 3301.
And upon prying a little deeper into Thomas Schoenberger,
it became clear that he had a much more shadowy past
than I'd previously thought.
I've been digging into Biden and what happened...
Now, Thomas had suggested that one of Q's earliest promoters, Tracy Beanz,
was taking Cicada's ideas directly to General Flynn.
This was irregular warfare at its finest.
I couldn't verify this claim.
And it seemed that Thomas may have been deflecting attention away
from his own business relationships.
Yeah, no, I did some military work with Bijan Kian.
In 2011, Thomas claims that he and Iranian-born entrepreneur Bijan Kian
ran a spy operation together in the Middle East on behalf of the Pentagon.
A few years later,
Bijan would join forces with General Flynn to start the Flynn Intel Group.
With these connections, was Cicada playing a role in a larger psyop,
one that overlapped with ex-military networks
to bolster the Q narrative from the beginning?
How can I put this? I'm not a professional soldier.
But I happen to have certain talents.
How in the world does a pianist get tangled up in something like that?
Well, I've done more than just piano in my life.
In less than a month's time, I'm gonna be back in court
for Jim's naturalization petition, of course on the opposition.
Amidst all the drama,
Jim was trying to naturalize to become a Filipino citizen.
We have some great arguments for why it should not be approved.
The Filipino immigration system allows witnesses to object
to a person trying to become a citizen.
Fred hoped to appear as a witness at Jim's upcoming naturalization hearing
in order to derail the process.
Do you think at this point, you've pushed Ron and Jim to the max,
or is there more room to go?
I think, given the current circumstances,
that I can't push them anymore.
SAPPORO, JAPAN
That wasn't exactly true.
When 8kun contracted a service provider in China,
Fred saw an opportunity.
He alerted the company that Ron's site was home
to a board promoting Hong Kong's independence protests,
figuring that the Chinese Communist party
wouldn't look too kindly on that.
And shortly thereafter, the site was booted.
Adding to the general weirdness,
Ron had once told me that he liked to sing opera
and suggested performing a song to set the mood.
For the world,
darkness shall cover the Earth.
Then Fred took it to the next level
and doxxed Ron's wife, a Chinese national.
Even the QAnon debunker, Travis View, thought it was ruthless.
And grows darkness the people.
You don't just fuck with somebody's family
and expect not to get counter punched.
If you bully me for months and months and months, I'm gonna fuck you up.
I'm gonna stay quiet about it until it happens.
With Fred's attacks continuing to escalate,
Ron and Jim had a new plan.
Fred had poked a lot of fun at Jim on Twitter,
but it seems he hadn't considered
that speech isn't quite as protected in the Philippines.
In fact, the Philippines considers something called cyber libel
to be a rather serious crime.
And Jim's lawyers had honed in on a particular tweet
that they felt could support a strong cyber libel case.
Of all things, Fred had called Jim senile
for wearing a Q pin in front of Congress.
And so began the case of James Arthur Watkins
versus Fredrick Robert Brennan.
He seems hell bent on all-out war, so he's got his war.
Rising.
A lot of people expected Jim to file something,
but what was filed shocked me
because it's a libel suit that is so ridiculous
that in the US, a judge would throw it out.
The legal standards here are a little bit different.
But even here, it's a high bar for that suit to try to clear.
But the Filipino Government had to decide
if it wanted to pursue an indictment, a process that often takes months.
It's a matter of opinion. And opinions can't be libelous.
All of these attack strategies seemed like part of a game
where actual beliefs took a backseat to winning.
When you're jumping, punch, and it'll give you a little boost.
Ah, fuck.
So, this is like the world of 8kun, basically?
Basically.
They saw their lives as a game
so much so that Ron and Tom had created a literal video game
based on the world of 8kun.
Jim is called the Pig Merchant.
So see, there's all the enslaved humans.
And here's Jim sitting on his throne.
So, who is Ron in the game? Can we see him?
Oh, Ron? We can't see him. He's at the very end.
After you beat the Pig Merchant,
then the area of Codemonkey gets revealed.
And that's like the final, final boss.
It's interesting that Ron would cast himself
as the secret final boss in a video game of his own design.
Ronald Watkins is related to Q somehow.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
What do you see are the primary clues that Ron and Jim are behind it?
Bending over backwards to help Q at every opportunity.
But also, the pen and the watch.
You know what I see is a weird clue here?
Ron and Jim have shared almost every obsession of theirs with me
except for watches.
Oh, see? Why don't you bring 'em up? Nice watch. Do you collect watches?
It has escalated to a full-scale rivalry.
Yeah. Sure, rivalry. Yeah.
I mean, what would you call it?
Maybe war is a little bit going too far,
but I woke up at five o'clock to go to a naturalization hearing,
and I'm not the person that's supposed to be naturalized.
I'm going to a hearing on my citizenship.
Just an opportunity to wear nice clothes and go to court.
Usually, the naturalization process is pretty straightforward,
especially for a wealthy American.
But with the help of his lawyer,
Fred was hoping to derail everything
by testifying against Jim's character.
What would you say to him if you see him?
He's got to be the one to engage. It's just not smart.
They're gonna be like, "We're being harassed by this libeler
and previous employee. Blah, blah, blah."
I feel like maybe a little bit nervous but also pretty confident.
I think it's most likely gonna get dismissed today.
Careful now. You got to watch out for gangsters.
- Oh, he's here. - Is he?
It's Jim.
It's gonna be an interesting day.
Alright. We definitely got to go then.
Two hours later
- How did it go? - Uh, yeah.
- Did you see Jim come out? - I did, yeah.
Where?
Honestly, he could have walked out of there a citizen.
The judge asked me, "Mister Brennan, where's your attorney?"
- Was the lawyer here today? - No.
He probably won't even be representing me next time
'cause of what happened today. So, that's it.
The hearing was a bust.
Without his lawyer present, Fred wasn't allowed to voice his opposition.
Jim was one step closer to becoming a Filipino citizen.
Yeah, we're just gonna leave 'cause, honestly,
I might end up on public freak out if we don't.
You know that subreddit?
This is why Millennials can't buy fucking houses! Fuck!
She never said anything after that fucking nut!
I couldn't recall seeing Fred this upset ever.
He even compared this moment to how he felt
after the El Paso Walmart shooting,
a sentiment that didn't earn him many likes.
That sucked. Honestly, I think we were really close to losing. Fuck.
Are you concerned
that because Jim has more sort of access and money
that he'll be able to make the libel case against you stick?
I don't know.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,
that's amore.
You got it.
With a smile on your face like a pasta e fazool, you're in love.
That's amore.
Jim seemed particularly ebullient after his immigration hearing.
Jim, you're not wearing a watch today. You know?
Don't you normally have a watch on?
Oh. I forgot my watch.
Maybe it fell off when you were walking in the mall.
No. I forgot it. That's all.
That's a weird thing to forget. It's like a...
I take it off when I take a shower. And I just forgot to put it back on.
Do you have a lot of watches or just one main watch?
I have a lot of watches.
I've been collecting them for 30 years. You know?
The next morning, I was headed home to LA.
Obviously, if the libel thing moves forward, I'll be back here for that.
Well...
It's already moved forward.
You're not worried at all about the libel case affecting you
when you're running a free speech website?
Like the kind of irony to that?
No.
Free speech does not free you from the obligation
of what might happen to you if you break laws.
Even if he "wins", he lost because the justice system is not fair.
America, the greatest nation this world has ever known.
Back in the States, ex-military figures were not the only ones
looking to harness Q's influence.
Congressional candidates like Lauren Boebert
and Marjorie Taylor Greene were openly embracing Q.
I'm Marjorie Greene, Republican for Congress.
Save America. Stop socialism.
As were a slew of Washington insiders.
'Scuse-sorry. It's a bad time to come in here.
Two of them even hit up Ron directly.
Zelda, come on.
And Ron wanted me to document the call.
This call is being recorded.
Nice to meet you. My name is Jason Sullivan.
I also have a very good friend of mine that's on the line,
who is a legendary former lead technical director of the NSA,
Bill Binney.
Hello? Bill here.
Jason Sullivan was Roger Stone's chief social media strategist.
Working together with Bill Binney,
Sullivan had developed a tool that gamed Twitter's algorithms,
allowing for anyone of his choosing to massively amplify their message.
This is not a sales call.
This is just get an introduction
and see if there's any ways or any things that we can do
to help the cause of the Great Awakening.
If Q is trying to utilize or optimize abilities on Twitter,
we can make 'em better.
We've got proprietary tools that can help recruit their armies
and get everybody on the same sheet of music
to where we're all disseminating together
and our splash in the pond is getting bigger and bigger
every time we drop something.
Ron's the chief admin that's creating 8kun,
and that's where Q is dropping stuff.
So, it looks like these two are working together
in some way, shape, or form.
So now you're thinking I'm a key player in this?
I'm not insinuating anything. The bottom line at the end of the day
is I want to help the President of the United States get his word out.
The president himself would be helping get Q's word out soon after.
In December of 2019, facing possible impeachment,
Donald Trump did what he does best.
Trump retweeted a massive flurry of QAnon accounts,
all in a single weekend,
shifting news coverage away from his problems
and providing a solid endorsement of Q.
And remember that story about Osama Bin Laden still being alive?
Months later, this would be the end result.
Just this week, you retweeted
to your 87 million followers a conspiracy theory
that Joe Biden orchestrated to have SEAL Team Six,
the Navy SEAL Team Six, killed to cover up the fake death of Bin Laden.
I'll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.
- I don't get that. - I don't take the position.
You're the president. You're not someone's crazy uncle.
During the homestretch of the presidential race,
Trump retweeted the Bin Laden claim,
a claim not provided by US intelligence agencies
but by the same dude feeding Craig scoops in between burps.
The descendent of an internet game, Q now had real power.
The president needed Q.
The political class was reaching out to Ron.
Retired military operatives were planting intel with QTubers.
The line between the game and reality had blurred.
Hey, Fred.
Fred? Hey, Fred, are you there?
I've been crying for two days straight.
Fred? Shit.
My whole life has just fallen apart. I don't know.
It's not good. But I don't know. I guess I deserve it.
Let's walk back a little
and just tell me tell me what's going on right now.
Two days ago, my lawyer messaged me.
There is going to be a case opened against you at the trial court
and that the government is gonna prosecute.
Fred's lawyer somehow got advance notice
that the cyber libel indictment was about to drop.
There's a mandatory minimum six years, maximum 12,
if they find you guilty of cyber libel.
I've talked to all these lawyers by now.
And they tell me to leave the country.
I guess I'm just gonna have to try to rebuild in California,
which I never thought I would be doing.
Or crash at my mother's house and cry for six months and do drugs, right?
I don't really know what I'm gonna do, but...
You're still in a pretty good spirits, all things considered.
That's good 'cause I feel like shit.
My wife kind of asks me like,
"Why did you really do all this?" You know?
"Do you just want to be famous?
You're the one that decided to keep it going."
What has it got me?
I told my wife I fucked up our lives.
And I don't know that it can be fixed.
I think I have to just give up on this fight
'cause I don't really think I changed anything in the long run.
How can I be helpful at this point?
If you could come
and just kind of help me get my shit on the plane and get there.
And of course, I will pay. I'll bring that watch.
We can go pawn it together. That could be useful.
I was gonna say, you should bring the watch.
No, I have to. Like, I'm running out of money.
So, if you could be here on Monday, that would be perfect for me.
Okay.
- Thank you. Bye-bye. - Bye.
Man.
Rivalries suck.
With his condition, if Fred went to jail, he'd almost certainly die.
While cyber libel may be a big deal in the Philippines,
no one deserves a death sentence for something they said.
So I felt like I had no choice but to help.
The police could come looking for Fred at any moment.
We had no time to lose.
20E. 20E.
First time I've ever actually been to his place.
We've had to hide it every time before this to prevent doxxing.
Hey there.
- Hey. - Hey, guys.
- What's up? - What's up with you?
I messed up my entire life.
I've been in a really bad place these last few days.
There was an entire day here
where I researched almost everything there is to know
about a detention center in Camp Bagong Diwa,
known as Bicutan Detention Center.
I've been so broken down by this case.
It just felt like my whole reality fell apart.
I had this mental divide in my mind
between the digital world and the real world.
And for me, it really didn't break down until this happened.
I always just thought that the internet is the internet.
And I kind of had, I guess, a kind of split personality.
What I did on the internet was different from what I did in real life.
And internet stuff, like 8chan stuff,
I didn't really see it as affecting the real world.
You know what? There's no difference at all.
The internet is the real world.
Time is of the essence.
That's why I suggested, it's better for you to leave in the meantime.
Fred decided to give the lawyer,
who had bailed on the immigration hearing, a second chance.
This is definitely the way to go is for him to leave tomorrow?
Yeah. For to leave. It would be for his best interest.
The bureau immigration is supposed to issue him the I-Card.
It's like the entry, exit permit. You cannot leave without the I-Card.
The lawyer said Fred could be issued an I Card at the airport.
All we had to do was get there early and pick it up at customs.
Our flight was at nine AM.
So, if we left by two AM, we'd be good to go.
Traffic in Manila is terrible.
2:35 AM
Fuck!
Oh fucking fuck, this fucking thing. Okay.
So the power's out at my unit right now.
It's 2:40 in the morning.
We're about to head to the airport, to try to get out of here.
I don't know if Fred's power's also out. I just sent him a message.
Okay, here we go. Fuck.
This is the down stairs, going down.
It's 26 flights? Oh my god.
Oh god. Oh man, Fred's elevator better be working.
I can't even imagine. Hey-hey, Fred.
You sound like you're exhausted. Are you all right?
I am exhausted. I'm sweating profusely.
- There's power in your place? - Yes.
- There's power in the tower. - Thank god.
- Hey, hey. - Sorry, are we going too fast?
Goodbye, Philippines. I'm feeling really good about leaving
even though I don't want to, even though I love this place,
and I'm gonna miss it a lot.
All right. Time for your daring escape.
What did my attorney say? You're not escaping anything, Fred.
I hope you like LA.
- Sorry, sorry, sorry. Buh-bye. - Bye, May.
You were such a good caregiver for many, many years. Okay?
Little did we know,
the indictment was being written up as we were arriving.
So, sir, we will be transferring you...
We dropped off Fred's luggage and headed to customs.
I shut down cameras for this stretch.
It was already a precarious enough situation.
We were pulled into an interrogation room.
In a country like the Philippines, with an autocratic leader
who has a history of killing journalists,
this was just about the last place we wanted to be.
The officials weren't speaking in English,
so I couldn't tell if Fred was about to be carted off to jail.
It turns out the problem was with the I Card.
They just aren't issued at the airport.
And the office that has them was two hours away in Manila traffic.
Fred was fucked.
- Okay. - I got some good news.
- What is it? - It's actually really good news.
They're gonna deliver the actual I-Card to the airport.
Here? Okay.
But it's not gonna get here in time.
The lawyer claimed he was sending somebody with an I-Card,
which seemed questionable at best,
but there was no other choice except to sit around and wait for it.
So, we missed our flight.
Global travel was shutting down due to the Coronavirus,
and all other flights out of Manila were booked for the next week,
except for one that left in an hour.
This has become reality now.
This isn't just a game that I play online and then go back to my family.
Game over.
This was our last shot.
So, we bought two tickets and hoped for the best.
Hi, honey. Sorry.
Not yet. Where is he? Yes. Oh, I see him.
Thank you.
Somehow, in less than 45 minutes,
a guy appeared on a motorcycle, I-Card in hand.
Looks right to me. Honey, are you there? Can you bring the car to us?
We need to go to terminal three really fast.
But the indictment could drop at any second.
Okay, they're on the way they said.
And our new flight was leaving
from a terminal on the other side of the airport.
These terminals are not anywhere near each other.
No, they're not. But this is great cinema.
If we add the reality show music under it.
Yeah.
We have to go. We need to move.
Sorry, I love you. I got to go.
Sorry, this thing has a max speed. I wish we could just run. But...
Sorry, we're late. I'm not used to this level of activity.
We're on a flight to Hong Kong. From Hong Kong, we're gonna go to LA.
We made it. We got through.
HONG KONG
During our layover in Hong Kong,
Fred learned that the indictment had dropped just moments
after the plane left Manila.
He had narrowly escaped.
So, you think Q is gonna write about you?
I do.
If he figures out you've come to LA?
Maybe it's just narcissism.
But I think that my narrative got really wrapped up in Q's
and that they would see this as a big victory.
I think Q is Ronald, also.
I think that he cannot help himself but to gloat about this.
February 18th. To be blunt, game over.
It's not. We're just playing a new game now.
This is a new game.