A renowned US conspiracy theorist suspected of being behind the QAnon movement has been discovered in Australia, with signs he may be staying.
Ron Watkins is the site administrator of 8kun, previously known as 8Chan, an online picture board that has become a haven for conspiracy theories, the extreme right, white nationalism, and Nazism.
Under the anonymous account name ‘Q,’ the American played a significant part in promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory, which believes the world is ruled by Satan-worshipping cannibalistic child molesters, on the websites 4chan, 8chan, and 8kun.
On Wednesday, QAnon Anonymous podcast presenter Julian Feeld posted to his Twitter account that Watkins was in Sydney and planned to reside there.
Feeld, who has spent years studying and exposing conspiracy theories, claims he obtained the information from an unnamed source.
‘Ron Watkins was in Sydney, Australia, with the apparent purpose of settling there on July 26th,’ he wrote.
The curious coincidence about Watkins being observed on July 26th was that he was in the midst of vying for the Republican nomination for Congress in Arizona.
Watkins finished seventh out of seven Republican candidates, which was disclosed a week after he was supposedly in Sydney.
This, according to Feeld, explains the conspiracy theorist’s “recent disappearance” in the United States.
Watkins had already complained on Telegram, an online messaging application with increased encryption and privacy settings, about Australia’s reaction to Covid-19.
He, like many other conspiracy theorists and far-right activists, criticized Australia’s state lockdowns, vaccination requirements, and gun restrictions.
However, Feeld said that Watkins has now deleted’multiple postings mentioning Australia’ from Telegram after it was revealed that he was in Sydney.
The Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Julian Feeld for comment.
QAnon began as a fringe organization on a 4chan internet forum in 2017, but quickly expanded into a worldwide movement that spread outlandish claims.
Watkins has denied using the anonymous pseudonym ‘Q’ on online forums, although he has backed QAnon conspiracy theories.
QAnon supporters were among the militants that stormed the US Capitol Building on January 6 to prevent the certification of the 2020 Presidential Election results.
In March, followers of the ‘Q’ account spread the claim that President Joe Biden’s address on the Russian threat to cybersecurity was a call for companies to build a ‘new global order’ with a’shadow government.’
Other QAnon members claimed that John F. Kennedy Jr, who died in a plane accident in 1999, had faked his death and would return to run the nation after Donald Trump.
According to a study performed by the Public Religion Research Institute last year, 15% of all Americans accept the core principles of QAnon.
The FBI has classified the movement as a terrorist threat.