The Coming Storm: Recent Episodes
BBC Radio 4
QAnon and the plot to break reality.
A year on from the Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, Gabriel Gatehouse journeys into the dark undergrowth of modern America. He's looking for the origins of the story that drove the crowds to storm the heart of US democracy. From conspiracy-soaked barrooms in 1990s Arkansas, via spies in hotel rooms in the shadow of the Kremlin, to anarchic chatrooms on the early internet, this is a search for the answer to one big question: did this just happen, or is somebody trying to break reality?
In the summer of 2023 a small budget thriller becomes a smash hit. Sound of Freedom is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former officer at the Department for Homeland Security, who spent years undercover busting child sex trafficking rings before he quit and set up his own organisation.
The film was linked to QAnon, the conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles secretly running America. Q, the anonymous figure who posted cryptic messages in online forums, isn’t mentioned in the film. He’s stopped posting and the movement has withered. But Q’s ideas have seeped into the mainstream. Now they’ve merged with a bigger story about dark forces that have captured the institutions of America - the Federal Reserve, the FBI, and…. Hollywood.
Producer: Lucy ProctorSound design and mix: James BeardEditor: Richard VadonScript consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh GrayCommissioning editor: Dan ClarkeOriginal music: Pete Cunningham
Credits:
Opening sequence includes sound from from:
Sound of Freedom, Official Trailer, Angel StudiosJim Caviezel on Bannon’s War Room, RumbleWoke Hollywood FURIOUS Over Sound Of Freedom HUGE Box Office Success! | They CAN'T STOP This Movie! Ryan Kinel, YoutubeControversial movie becomes a surprise summer hit, CNNHow 'Sound of Freedom,' controversial child sex trafficking film, became a hit in theaters, USA today
O.U.R documentary audio from The Abolitionists, FletChet Entertainment
A prank about pizza is the moment members of the Republican Party in Idaho realise the conspiratorial John Birch Society has burrowed into mainstream politics. These people are dredging up ideas from the past, about communist plots and hidden hands, and repurposing them for the 21st Century. An alliance is forming in the Pacific Northwest state between the John Birchers and another group of people who never trusted the federal government of America. Gabriel Gatehouse meets the leader of The Real 3%’ers of Idaho, anti-government activists who are part of the militia movement. He hears how a stand-off in the desert a decade ago between government bureaucrats and cowboys became a defining moment, for those who don’t trust the institutions of the state, and also for the FBI, as everyone looks at the January 6 Capitol riot as evidence of the enemy within.
Producer: Lucy ProctorSound design and mix: James BeardEditor: Richard VadonScript consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh GrayCommissioning editor: Dan ClarkeOriginal music: Pete Cunningham
Credits:
Dorothy Moon speaking at the Kootenai County Republican Women Federated’s fundraiser
Idaho Freedom Foundation Investigation by KTVB
Dorothy Moon introducing Eric Parker of Hailey during the Idaho House session on Jan. 16, 2018.
Leaked bodycam footage of the Bundy Ranch stand-off fromThe Pete Santilli Show, Rumble - original owner unknown
America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems. As Gabriel Gatehouse travels around America in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential election, he keeps hearing about the Federal Reserve. Many people think the Fed is a central cog in a grand conspiracy to impose a sinister ‘New World Order’ and control the supply of money. These dark fears about the Federal Reserve are bound up with the fear of communism. And they go back to the Cold War… to a fringe group called The John Birch Society, and one of its leaders, Congressman Larry McDonald, who lived his life as if in the crosshairs of a terrifying communist conspiracy.
Producer: Lucy ProctorSound design and mix: James BeardEditor: Richard VadonScript consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh GrayCommissioning editor: Dan ClarkeOriginal music: Pete Cunningham
CREDITS:
U.S. Stock Market Crash - 1929 | Today in History | 29 Oct 16, AP Archive
Clips of Larry McDonald and Robert Welch from Education Is the Key (by Larry McDonald) 1980, John Birch Society and 1958 Robert Welch Speech - Insiders Plan To Take Over America (copyright unknown)
Audio of G Edward Griffin presentation from The Creature From Jekyll Island (by G. Edward Griffin), recorded 1994
Western Goals film, The Subversion Factor, Knowledge 2020 Media, 1983
America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems. As America heads into a presidential election, Gabriel Gatehouse dives back into the labyrinthine rabbit warren of American conspiracy culture.
Whilst liberals across the world worry about a possible return of Donald Trump, millions of Americans are convinced that their democracy has already been highjacked - by a sinister Deep State cabal. How did this happen? And who is behind it?
Gabriel meets a January 6 rioter running for office who sees his detention as political imprisonment and goes on the trail of a Californian yogi who stormed the Capitol and then fell even deeper down the rabbit hole.
New episodes available on Wednesdays. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
Producer: Lucy ProctorSound design and mix: James BeardEditor: Richard VadonScript consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh GrayCommissioning editor: Dan ClarkeOriginal music: Pete Cunningham
CREDITS:Audio from January 6 from A Reporter’s Video from Inside the Capitol Siege, Luke Mogelson, The New Yorker
Audio of Ivan Raiklin from @MattStruck on X News report of Alan Hostetter’s first protest from Former La Habra police chief sentenced for role in Jan. 6 attack on US Capitol, KCAL News News report of Alan Hostetter’s first protest from PROTEST - Coronavirus Quarantine/Lockdown Protests - The Next Thing? (San Clemente, CA), Local Story TV Audio of ‘fencegate’ from OC Hawk
Audio of protests outside Katrina Foley’s home from @inminivanhell, X Alan Hostetter outside the Supreme Court from Virginia Women for Trump rally at Supreme Court, NTD / Patria De Marti Alan Hostetter’s video on ‘fencegate’ from Bitchute
A vast new conspiracy movement has gripped America. That weird story we were looking into last time - about Hillary Clinton and a cabal of satanic paedophiles – that’s morphed into something bigger and perhaps more consequential. Join us as we go through the looking glass, into a world where nothing is as it seems, where the storming of the Capitol on January 6 2021 was a piece of theatre, the institutions of the state are a façade and behind the scenes, hidden hands are believed to be pulling the strings.
Listen to new episodes first on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 10 September 2024.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
Journalists and podcast hosts Jon Ronson and Gabriel Gatehouse join Marianna for a special episode of Americast delving deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracies. The trio talk about why America is a breeding ground for conspiracies, how to spot them, and what happens if they’re true. We also look at whether conspiracies and misinformation might affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election and what role artificial intelligence could play in their spread. HOST: • Marianna Spring, disinformation and social media correspondent GUESTS: • Jon Ronson, host of 'Things Fell Apart' • Gabriel Gatehouse, host of 'The Coming Storm' GET IN TOUCH: • Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 • Email Americast@bbc.co.uk • Or use #Americast Find out more about our award-winning “undercover voters” here: bbc.in/3lFddSF. This episode was made by Daniel Wittenberg with Alix Pickles, Natasha Fernandes and Alex Collins. The technical producer was Ben Andrews and the sound designer was David Crackles. The editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.
Catrin Nye gets a mysterious call that plunges her into an unsettling world of self-help and cults. What happens when a life coach takes over your life?In early 2019 Jeffrey Leigh-Jones from Portsmouth got a life coach. Someone to mentor him in life and help him realise his business ambitions. Two years later, Jeff had sold his house, his relationship was in pieces, and he had handed over tens of thousands of pounds. And he wasn’t the only one. In this eighteen-month investigation for the BBC, journalist Catrin Nye and her team expose control, intimidation and fear at a mysterious life coaching company taking over people’s lives and ripping families apart. As the investigation hots up, the group fights back, and there’s a surreal final showdown…Listen to all eight episodes from Wednesday 5 April 2023. Reporter: Catrin NyeWritten by: Jamie Bartlett and Catrin NyeProducers: Osman Iqbal, Natalie Truswell, Ed Main and Jo AdnittResearcher: Aisha DohertyExecutive producer: Ravin SampatSound engineer: James BradshawOriginal music by: Phil ChannellCommissioner: Rhian Roberts
Dr Julia Shaw unwraps Bad People’s choice of true crime podcasts in 2022. She talks to Gabriel Gatehouse about his series The Coming Storm, which began as an investigation into the QAnon phenomenon and has evolved to explore major conspiracies that have engulfed politics in the US and beyond.Julia also meets Winifred Robinson, the acclaimed BBC journalist whose podcast The Boy in the Woods revisits the disturbing case of murdered six year-old Rikki Neave.And journalist Una Mullally discusses the extraordinary story behind Obscene, a BBC podcast that examines the political scandal that erupted following the discovery of a suspected killer in the home of the Irish Attorney General in 1982.Presenter: Dr Julia ShawProducer: Laura NorthedgeAssistant Producer: Hannah WardEditor: Anna LaceyMusic: Matt ChandlerCommissioning Executive: Dylan HaskinsCommissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland#BadPeople_BBC
Louis Theroux interviews Gabriel Gatehouse about the aftermath of the 2021 Capitol riots, QAnon, and the latest twists in the plot to break reality. Producer: Lucy Proctor
When Gabriel Gatehouse is reporting on the aftermath of the presidential election in 2020, and trying to understand the motivations behind QAnon, he comes across people who believe another conspiracy theory.
It’s about a laptop which Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, had supposedly left in a computer repair shop in Delaware. The laptop allegedly contains damning information about the Biden family. Gabriel thinks it’s fake news and ignores it at the time. But that is a mistake.
The laptop turns out to be real, even if some of the claims about its contents are not. Silicon Valley and perhaps even the FBI seem to have tried to suppress the story, while the mainstream media refused to run it. For some, it is now powerful evidence that the Biden administration, and the entire establishment, is a regime that must be toppled.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
As America goes out to vote for the first time since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election, Gabriel Gatehouse is back in the deep undergrowth of the US political scene, in a bid to understand where the dark energy underpinning the January 6 assault on the Capitol is going now.
Some of the energy from the QAnon conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles is morphing into a grassroots political movement against ‘groomers’ – the idea that LGBTQI+ sex educators and trans healthcare advocates are indoctrinating young people into a sexualised culture.
The battleground is America’s school boards and the prize could be a galvanised Republican base with a new crusade. At a conference in Miami of thinkers shaping the future ideas of the right, Gabriel finds the issue top of the agenda.
And across the country, a slate of candidates linked to QAnon is running for office – how will they fare?
Producer: Lucy Proctor
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse has something to confess. Throughout the making of the series he’s been developing his own conspiracy theory. It’s about a book, called The Sovereign Individual, written by two men who were also pushing stories about the Clintons in the 1990s.
Were the people who seeded the myths that led to QAnon involved in a vast conspiracy to break reality, to divide and conquer and divvy up the spoils?
Gabriel seeks to understand the book, a favourite amongst the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley. They think a new version of the web, based on crypto and blockchain, will bring about the next step in the societal shift driven by the internet. What would that mean for democracy?
Producer: Lucy Proctor
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
The Q Shaman, the man with the furs and horns who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is in jail. The movement he came to symbolise appears defeated. But in a small South Carolina seaside town, ‘establishment’ Republicans are fighting a losing battle for the soul of their party, after one of the bloggers who mainstreamed the QAnon conspiracy theory has been elected to a powerful local position.
Across America, people who believe Donald Trump’s parallel narrative about a stolen election are trying to take over the levers of democracy. Was this the plan all along?
Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Donald Trump’s fantasy about a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 election merges with the fantasy of QAnon, about a looming showdown against the deep state cabal of satanic paedophiles.
After the storming of the Capitol in Washington DC, major figures from the QAnon movement gather in Dallas, Texas. Gabriel Gatehouse gets inside their conference to try to figure out who is now controlling this parallel reality. And he confronts General Flynn who is calling for his ‘digital soldiers’ to take over the country from the bottom up.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
A British spy is hired to dig dirt on Donald Trump’s Russia connections. His sources tell him Trump is a Russian agent, a puppet of the Kremlin.
America is gripped by this story. Half are convinced the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in order to defeat Hillary Clinton. But the other half believes the investigations into Russian collusion are a hoax, a conspiracy by the establishment to unseat a democratically elected president.
The QAnon community takes up this second narrative, in which a renegade General becomes a martyr and a figurehead.
Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
In Oct 2017 Donald Trump says something weird in a room full of military figures: “Maybe this is the calm before the storm.”
A few weeks later a poster on 4chan who calls himself Q starts to tell a crazy story about a coming storm, in which Trump is engaged in an epic battle against a cabal of satanic paedophiles who have hijacked the American Republic.
A group of bloggers mainstream the theory and it starts having a life of its own with real world consequences. Qanon is born. But who is directing it?
Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
A severely disabled boy from upstate New York is shocked when his online community of video game fans is flooded with porn. He gets sucked into a toxic world of mostly young men stuck in their parents’ basements, making memes out of snippets of popular culture and Nazi symbols. He becomes a major figure in a dark new counterculture germinating on a niche website called 4chan.
As the 2016 Presidential election approaches, a story grows on 4chan about Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, paedophilia, and references to pizza. The story bursts out into the real world when a man walks into a pizza restaurant with a gun.
Producer: Lucy Proctor Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse discovers a real conspiracy called The Arkansas Project. The aim is to inject lurid tales about the Clintons into the mainstream American press in the 1990s. These stories spin off in different directions. Down one road lie sex scandals and eventually impeachment proceedings. But thanks to an Evangelical coalition the story goes off in another direction, involving Satan and a looming battle between good and evil. A dark fantasy has taken hold which bubbles away under the surface, ignored by the establishment.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
When a mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC, reporter and presenter Gabriel Gatehouse sees someone he recognises: a man draped in furs with horns on his head. He is known as the Q Shaman.
Gabriel had met him at a Trump rally in Arizona, ranting about a conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton and a cabal of satanic paedophiles plotting to steal the 2020 presidential election.
The search for the origins of this strange and twisted tale begins in 1993, when the suicide of a White House aide during Bill Clinton’s presidency reveals the first signs of a new information ecosystem that is starting to spill over into the mainstream. Myths about his murder proliferate on the early internet. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. In Arkansas a parallel reality is forming, in which the Clintons are a corrupt and murderous couple who will stop at nothing in their quest for power.
Producer: Lucy Proctor
QAnon and the plot to break reality.
A year on from the Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, Gabriel Gatehouse journeys into the dark undergrowth of modern America. He's looking for the origins of the story that drove the crowds to storm the heart of US democracy. From conspiracy-soaked barrooms in 1990s Arkansas, via spies in hotel rooms in the shadow of the Kremlin, to anarchic chatrooms on the early internet, this is a search for the answer to one big question: did this just happen, or is somebody trying to break reality?