The Coming Storm
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? That's the story that Gabriel Gatehouse is investigating in this series of The Coming Storm.The search for the origins of this story takes...
Mon, January 20, 2025
S2: Inauguration - Live Q&A
Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by the BBC’s US Digital reporter Mike Wendling to answer listener questions. Has the storm finally come? What do listeners want to know about the incoming Trump administration? Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by US-based BBC journalist Mike Wendling to answer listener questions about Donald Trump's picks for influential positions and about how to report on conspiracy culture. This live recording happened on the Live News stream on BBC Sounds the day before President Trump was inaugurated. Producers: Lucy Proctor and Charlotte McDonald
Sun, January 19, 2025
S2: Inauguration - Bonus Episode
Over two series this podcast has followed a cast of characters who propelled Trump into the White House – twice. Many of them are now likely to take power and inject their reality-bending world views into America’s health, security and intelligence infrastructure. Who are they and what do they believe? There's Kash Patel, Trump's pick for FBI director. He was deeply embedded in the Russiagate saga. Several bit-part players in our episodes who've now been promised influence. Elon Musk of course. And then there's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Son of a murdered Senator, nephew of a murdered president, he believes many of America's three-letter agencies represent a threat to national health and security. Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse Producer: Lucy Proctor
Thu, January 16, 2025
Send us your questions! Live Q&A
Join Gabriel Gatehouse and BBC journalist Mike Wendling for a Q+A on the BBC Sounds Live News stream on Sunday 19 January 2024, 1400 GMT. And send us your questions! What would you like to know about some of the people Donald Trump has picked for influential positions in the White House? Has the storm finally come? Email us: thecomingstorm@bbc.co.uk
Fri, November 08, 2024
Americast: Why Trump Won (and Why Harris Lost)
The Americast team gets together for an election inquest to examine what went right and wrong. Is Joe Biden to blame for Harris’ loss? Or did something else cause the VP to underperform with the voters she needed to win? Was Trump’s straight-forward messaging a winning strategy? Or has there been a fundamental shift among American voters that goes beyond politics?
Wed, October 30, 2024
S2: 8. The Last Election…?
Gabriel Gatehouse, producer Lucy Proctor and Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Oxford University, in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre. As the team emerges from series 2, what have we learned about the future of democracy in an age of technological change and split realities? Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham
Wed, October 23, 2024
S2: 7. Wonderland
In the 1990s a group of futurist thinkers meet on one of the world’s first email lists. The Extropians imagine a world of augmented human bodies, nanotechnology, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence. Now, some of the thinkers on that email list are turning that AI future into a reality. But others are now worried - what if the AI ends up in charge of us all? As we head into an epochal shift for humanity, questions about democracy and tyranny run through the debates about how fast or slow to move forward. Because we don’t want to end up living in the Matrix… Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham CREDITS: Timothy Leary 1992 half-hour appearance with cable TV host Skip E Lowe, copyright unknown, Alan Eichler, YouTube After all, the body is an extension of fashion, Natasha Vita More, YouTube
Wed, October 16, 2024
S2: 6. Kompromat
In series one of this podcast we spent months investigating QAnon, a crazy conspiracy theory involving an elite cabal of paedophiles and child sex traffickers. And we never really grappled with… this actual convicted paedophile and sex trafficker, who was at the centre of a network of global financial cultural and political elites. But the story of Jeffrey Epstein is more than a kernel of truth at the heart of Qanon. It connects the idea of a cabal of elite paedophiles to the wider conspiracy theory we’re looking into for series two, one that millions of Americans believe: that democracy is a facade, and that the institutions of America, from politics to finance, from Hollywood to the secret intelligence agencies, are controlled by hidden hands. Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham CREDITS: Stephen Hawking clip from goal.cast, TikTok Jeffrey Epstein reporting in Florida, 2008-2011 from WPBF, Palm Beach Post, WBTV, Miami Herald G Edward Griffin clip from The Subversion Factor, Knowledge 2020 Media, 1983 Gamestop archive from CNBC Ian Carrol's videos: Cancelthisclothingco on TikTok Peter Thiel on The Joe Rogan Experience
Wed, October 09, 2024
S2: 5. The Photocopier
Gabriel Gatehouse is on holiday with his family when he gets an invitation to an exclusive party in New York City from a group called Praxis. The tech start-up plans to create a new sovereign state somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, part of a new tech movement called ‘the network state’. The idea is that these statelets, governed not by a giant state bureaucracy but on the blockchain, will eventually replace the nation state. Gabriel meets crypto cowboys cheering on the end of democracy and tech bros hoping to replace the dollar with meme coins. It looks like kids playing around, larping as revolutionaries. But kids playing around with memes gave rise to Pizzagate, Qanon and Jan 6… Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham CREDITS: The Network State Conference 2023 - Livestream, The Network State Podcast, Youtube JD Vance: The US is being run by 'childless cat ladies', Fox News EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING, Praxis_tv, Youtube
Wed, October 02, 2024
S2: 4. The Jump
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 Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham Credits: Opening sequence includes sound from from: Sound of Freedom, Official Trailer, Angel Studios Jim Caviezel on Bannon’s War Room, Rumble Woke Hollywood FURIOUS Over Sound Of Freedom HUGE Box Office Success! | They CAN'T STOP This Movie! Ryan Kinel, Youtube Controversial movie becomes a surprise summer hit, CNN How '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
Wed, September 25, 2024
S2: 3. The Enemy Within
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 Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original 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
Wed, September 18, 2024
S2: 2. Flight 007
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 Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original 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
Wed, September 18, 2024
S2: 1. The Yogi
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 Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original 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
Wed, September 04, 2024
S2: Welcome back to The Coming Storm
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
Wed, February 07, 2024
Introducing The Gatekeepers
It all started with a crazy idea to realise a hippie dream of building a “global consciousness”. The plan was to build a connected world, where everyone could access everyone and everything all the time; to overthrow the old gatekeepers and set information free. But social media didn’t turn out that way. Instead of setting information free – a new digital elite conquered the world and turned themselves into the most powerful people on the planet. Now, they get to decide what billions of us see every day. They can amplify you. They can delete you. Their platforms can be used to coordinate social movements and insurrections. A content moderator thousands of miles away can change your life. What does this mean for democracy – and our shared reality? Jamie Bartlett traces the story of how and why social media have become the new information gatekeepers, and what the decisions they make mean for all of us. New episodes of The Gatekeepers are released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Wed, October 18, 2023
Introducing The Cows Are Mad
The Covid-19 pandemic has been one of the weirdest things any of us has lived through. But there was another sickness that once stalked the nation and turned things very strange for a while.
Fri, June 02, 2023
Americast – Conspiracies: Inside the Rabbit Hole
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.
Wed, April 05, 2023
Introducing... A Very British Cult
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 Nye Written by: Jamie Bartlett and Catrin Nye Producers: Osman Iqbal, Natalie Truswell, Ed Main and Jo Adnitt Researcher: Aisha Doherty Executive producer: Ravin Sampat Sound engineer: James Bradshaw Original music by: Phil Channell Commissioner: Rhian Roberts
Wed, December 21, 2022
Bad People present True Crime Crackers 2022 ft. The Coming Storm
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 Shaw Producer: Laura Northedge Assistant Producer: Hannah Ward Editor: Anna Lacey Music: Matt Chandler Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland #BadPeople_BBC
Thu, November 17, 2022
S1: The Louis Theroux Interview
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
Sun, November 13, 2022
S1: The Mid-Terms 2. The Regime
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
Sun, November 06, 2022
S1: The Mid-Terms 1. Groomers
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
Tue, February 22, 2022
S1: 8. Epilogue
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 7. Welcome to the Future
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 6. The Usual Suspects
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 5. Blowback
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 4. Q Drops
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 3. The Basement
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 2. Sex, Lies, and… a Videotape
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
Tue, January 04, 2022
S1: 1. The Dead Body
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
Mon, December 20, 2021
S1: Welcome to The Coming Storm
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?
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