A (re)discovered series of posts seemingly authored by Q shed a little more light on the figure behind the notorious conspiracy. Largely unnoticed, they have not entered "official" aggregators of "Q drops" - as true believers call Q's prophecies.

bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-w…
How do we know they share the same author as Q's "canonical" posts? These "lost drops" include large sections of text which are identical to both previous and subsequent Q drops, in several cases sharing a unique user ID with the latter.
Compare Lost drop A (left) with canonical drop 4 (right). These apocryphal "Q drops" were made shortly after the first verified Q drop, on October 28, 2017. The conspiracy was in its infancy - what would an impostor have to gain?
In Q’s earliest days, the author hadn’t quite figured out what tone or personality was right for this character. Eventually the author settled on a winning plan: “Q” should operate at a lofty remove from each thread, dispensing pearls of wisdom for their fans to decipher.
But in these posts, the author is out of character and directly attacks critics. This author is "one of the guys" - vulgar and brittle, much like the online culture they thrived in. This shows how Q was a regular "anon". bellingcat.com/news/americas/…
As this dangerous conspiracy has gained prominence, observers have sought a smoking gun to identify the culprit once and for all. These "lost drops" are not that smoking gun - but they may undermine the mystique which has enticed and radicalised QAnon's true believers.
Read this investigation from @QOrigins here: bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-w…

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More from @bellingcat

23 Apr
India’s coronavirus crisis continues to escalate as it becomes one of the most severely hit countries in the world to date.

In desperation, many are turning to social media sites such as Twitter to find medical resources bellingcat.com/news/2021/04/2…
These cries for help are poignant and heartbreaking.

But they also provide a window of observation into the speed of escalation of the crisis and the dangers Covid-19 still poses.

Hashtags such as #IndiaNeedsOxygen & #COVIDEmergency2021 have become commonplace Image
During March, there were on average only five tweets per day (excluding retweets) containing the keywords “delhi” and “urgent”.

By April 21, this had increased to over 400, with a new request for help sent every 24 seconds late in the evening on April 22. Image
Read 8 tweets
20 Apr
Thanks to everyone who attended today's digital showcase from @zkharazian, who discussed how to track disinformation in an Armenian context.

You can watch a recording of the event here (~2.5 hours):
You can watch this Monday's digital showcase event, ran by @RuslanLeviev, here (Russian):
Our next digital showcase event will be @Soshnikoff on May 6th, with a presentation led in Russian on an investigation he conducted, and then on May 7, a presentation in Ukrainian from a journalist at @bihusinfo focusing on anti-corruption investigations using OSINT techniques.
Read 4 tweets
20 Apr
New details of the Czech arms depot explosion in 2014 from Bellingcat, including details of a senior GRU leader's direct involvement, and details of other team members involved bellingcat.com/uncategorized/…
Bellingcat has established that the GRU operation which Czech authorities have linked to the explosion of the munition depot in Vrbetice on 16 October 2014, involved at least six operatives from GRU’s Unit 29155. Image
It was supervised personally by its commander, Col. Gen. Andrey Averyanov, a senior deputy to the head of the GRU, who traveled undercover to Central Europe at the exact time of the operation and left back to Moscow mere hours after the explosion. Image
Read 9 tweets
15 Apr
Iraq has huge oil reserves, but it has also been blighted by rapidly declining air quality & oil pollution in recent years

How can open source tools help us monitor these issues & pinpoint who is responsible for pollution? New from @wammezz & @oballinger bellingcat.com/resources/2021…
@wammezz @oballinger A host of sources allow us to openly monitor pollution.

Here, nighttime imagery from the @NASAEarth VIIRS sensor highlights bright-burning gas flares from oil wells south of Erbil.

This time lapse (captured between 2013 and 2017) also shows the period when ISIS captured Mosul.
@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth Gas flares are a major sources of air pollution. Combining VIIRS imagery with @ESA_EO Sentinel-5p data in @googleearth Engine, we can also see high levels of Nitrogen Dioxide around flaring sites, many of which are located near big cities
Read 13 tweets
13 Apr
The Comité International Pour La Protection Des Droits de L'homme (CIPDH) bills itself as a human rights group with headquarters in Paris. But as @elisethoma5 discovered, this was far from the whole story … bellingcat.com/news/2021/04/1…
@elisethoma5 CIPDH, it transpires, has exaggerated an apparent relationship with the UN, issued what the European Commission describes as “fantasy passports” and even misappropriated the identity of several prominent individuals
@elisethoma5 Until last year, CIPDH stated on its website that it partnered with more than a dozen UN agencies. Yet not one of those agencies said they had heard of CIPDH when contacted by Bellingcat
Read 13 tweets
8 Apr
Bellingcat is delighted to announce that it has received a three year grant from @PostcodeLoterij to expand globally from our base in the Netherlands

Read more: bellingcat.com/bellingcat-rec…
@PostcodeLoterij Bellingcat has become known for high-profile investigations such as those that looked at the downing of MH17 and the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. 

While we will always look to cover important issues such as these, we have big plans to cover more topics and regions.
@PostcodeLoterij The @PostcodeLoterij grant will help us produce more open source reporting on the likes of environmental and wildlife issues. 

It will also help us explore how open source evidence can be used in national and international courts, advancing accountability.
Read 6 tweets

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