A renowned US conspiracy theorist suspected of being behind the QAnon movement has been discovered in Australia, with signs that he may be staying.
Ron Watkins is the site administrator of 8kun, previously 8Chan, an online picture board that has become a haven for conspiracy theories, the extreme right, white nationalism, and Nazism.
The American, under the alias ‘Q,’ promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, which believes the world is governed by Satan-worshipping cannibalistic child molesters, on the websites 4chan, 8chan, and 8kun.
Watkins also spread falsehoods regarding Covid-19 and the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden would defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election as a result of electoral fraud.
On Wednesday, QAnon Anonymous podcast presenter Julian Feeld posted on 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.
‘On July 26th, Ron Watkins was in Sydney, Australia, with the apparent intention of settling there,’ he wrote.
Watkins’ appearance on July 26th was an odd coincidence since he was in the midst of vying for the Republican nomination for Congress in Arizona.
Watkins finished last out of seven Republican candidates, according to an announcement made a week after he was supposedly in Sydney.
Feeld said this in a tweet, explaining the conspiracy theorist’s “recent absence” in the United States.
Watkins has previously complained about Australia’s reaction to Covid-19 on Telegram, an online chat application with increased encryption and privacy settings.
He, like many other conspiracy theorists and extremists, criticized Australia’s state lockdowns, vaccination requirements, and gun regulations.
Watkins, on the other hand, has subsequently deleted’multiple postings mentioning Australia’ from Telegram after it was revealed that he was in Sydney, according to Feeld.
Julian Feeld has been contacted by the Daily Mail Australia for comment.
QAnon began in 2017 as a fringe organization on the internet site 4chan, but quickly developed into a worldwide movement that spread outlandish theories.
Watkins has denied posting on online forums under the anonymous user ‘Q,’ although he has embraced QAnon conspiracy theories.
QAnon supporters were among those who 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 cement a “new global order” with a “shadow government.”
Others in QAnon felt that John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in an aircraft accident in 1999, had died in vain and would return to run the nation after Donald Trump.
According to a study done last year by the Public Religion Research Institute, 15% of all Americans accept the core principles of QAnon.
The FBI has designated the movement as a terrorist threat.