4chan

The author of "Bread Crumbs" claimed he was a member of the federal government with a Q clearance. Q clearance is a security authorization at the Department of Energy that would grant someone top-secret access to national security information, among other things.

The post was screenshot and posted to Reddit's conspiracy subreddit and, voilà, QAnon was born — "Q" for the security clearance, "anon" for anonymous.

A month after the 4chan post, a manifesto titled "The Book of Q" was posted to a Google Drive.

Since then, the theory has bounced around a million social media sites, shifting and changing as more and more users share it and alter it to fit their needs.