Conspiracy theories shattered my relationship – from flat earth videos to hoarding weapons

Conspiracy theories are destructive, claiming lives and shattering relationships.

This year, amid the backdrop of the pandemic, increasing numbers of people were drawn into dangerous conspiracies. Many of us saw family members, friends and strangers call Covid a hoax, sharing Facebook posts with outrageous vaccine claims or lockdown protest videos with the hashtag #SaveOurChildren, unknowingly linked to QAnon misinformation – unfounded claims of a satanic cabal of pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring. For lots of us this is totally new; there’s no guidebook on how to deal with relationships altered because of conspiracies.

Anna*, witnessed the deterioration of her partner and their relationship over a number of years. It began with so-called “flat earth” videos, subsequently descending into anti-vax and QAnon, to then actively preparing for the end of the world, secretly collecting guns, crossbows and gas tanks in their shared home.

Far from the charming, attractive man she fell for, she found herself living with a shadow of the person she knew. What’s worse, he was in denial, telling no one else but her and his children. He became aggressive and secretive, and she had no idea what to do.

Anna said the spiral culminated with her partner attacking her after she shared what was happening with her parents. Rob* was ultimately handed a suspended prison sentence and a fine for a range of charges, including possession of weapons.

Sharing her story with i, she said anyone who looked at Rob* would never have known what was going on. “He’s 51; he’s well-educated. None of my family or friends knew,” she said.

Anna’s story

Once Anna and Rob became a couple, his children became like her family and they went on to move in together.

A few years into their relationship Rob lost his job, and went on to start his own business. The drastic change meant he began spending a lot time at home, and more time online.

“I started to hear him talk about some conspiracy videos that he had been watching on YouTube,” she told i. At first she wasn’t worried as they seemed harmless – videos on fake moon landings and questioning the reality of 9/11. She even found a few of them interesting herself.

While he’d long been fascinated by Bitcoin and enjoyed analysing stocks, he’d never spent this much time online before. “When I came home from work weekends, or evenings, YouTube was constantly on in the background; if he was sitting in the garden or in the car, he would be listening to it.”

One theory pulled him in especially in 2016: the flat earth theory. The movement, which is full of believers who are convinced the earth is flat, grew increasingly popular thanks to YouTube but moved to offline conventions.

The downwards spiral began

As happens with any interest online, good or bad, the platform’s algorithm took control, suggesting more and more videos on the subject

“I remember having quite heated debates with him about about Flat Earth and he wouldn’t concede that I might have a point. He was absolutely adamant in his belief.”

Over time, it began to spread to more conspiracies. “Things like anti-vax. He became convinced that fluoride was added to our water because it was to dumb people down. He insisted we got a huge water distiller in the kitchen, and he would not use fluoride toothpaste.”

He spoke of chemtrails, the belief that the visible trail left in the sky by an aircraft consists of chemical or biological agents released as part of a covert operation, and “this huge sort of satanic sort of like cover up in the UK, where all this ritual abuse have been going on”. “He said lots of elites were involved,” she said.

The conspiracy theory was QAnon, one of the most infamous fringe movements of this year. The convoluted conspiracy theory went from the dark corners of the internet to mainstream political discourse, as Donald Trump was forced to denounce it during the November election. Rob watched Q-drops, cryptic messages posted by the movement’s anonymous leader, Anna said.

“It just got more and more outrageous,” said Anna. “There’s probably not one conspiracy theory he didn’t fall for.”

“I felt really trapped. Not financially or any specific reason, but that I needed to be there”

As the only person he knew who could see what was happening, she became isolated in the relationship. “It was absolutely something he never ever bought up in front of any of his friends or family. It was very much reserved for me and his children.”

There was no intimacy in the relationship any more; he was simply obsessed with the videos, and if they did spend any time together or go out, he would either continued watching them or was desperate to leave so he could.

The loneliness was palpable.

In May of this year, Counter Terrorism Policing North East warned of the impacts of lockdown on people’s propensity to become radicalised online.

Officers were concerned that isolation measures were making people more vulnerable as they became increasingly lonely and spent increased amounts of time online. “We’d urge anyone who is worried about someone they know to visit the Let’s Talk About It website for more information, or to share their concerns with police,” Detective Superintendent Davison said.

The beginning of the end

One conspiracy would prove to be the end for Anna and Rob’s relationship. He found Empcoe (Electro-Magnetic Plasma Change Over Event) – a theory which hinges on the belief that the world will experience something described as a plasma apocalypse, a celestial event which triggers a portal to open up in the sky, resulting in the deaths of millions people. Only the elites know and will survive in order to restart society, according to believers.

i analysis found videos of the conspiracy theory still available on YouTube. Two of the figures Anna highlighted as being particularly important to her partner’s radicalisation, are still on the platform.

“I found it horrific. The people he listened to were like a sort of cult leader,” she said. She begged him to stop watching them, but he would just do that in front of her, instead saving them for when he was alone.

In 2018, packages began arriving to their house nearly every day. She began to see crossbows, knives, survival gear and air rifles in their house. He stored an electricity generator and water tanks.

“I was too scared to challenge him about them,” Anna said.

That year he applied for a gun license and was granted it. He began mentioning an EMPCOE event he was going to in December of that year. “He said he was going to fight for his life and fight for ours,” Anna said. “That he wasn’t going to go down with everyone else.”

The next few months became a deadlock of her begging him to stop, and him imploring her to wait until the EMPCOE event had happened, even after several reschedules . He moved the firearms and tanks he had stocked to a separate unit following an argument.

“I felt really trapped. Not financially or any specific reason, but that I needed to be there. I knew that if I told my family or friends exactly what was going on, they would say ‘this isn’t normal, you need to get out’.”

She was also hopeful. “I just hoped he would come out of this like spiral and return to the past.”

Everything comes to a head

One morning in 2019, Anna started getting ready for work like any other morning. She woke up at five o’clock, went about her normal routine, getting the dogs out, making breakfast.

She noticed Rob was silent and asked if everything was okay.

“‘I want you to get the fuck out of my house,’ he said. ‘Get out of my fucking house.’” He accused of her not finding him attractive anymore, and yelled at her to leave.

Anna fled to her parents’ house and told them everything – everything he believed, what their life together had been like for the last few years, and how she felt. It was the first time she had spoken to anyone about it.

She feared her parents would dismiss her concerns, or suggest she work on the relationship, but they did neither. They dressed faster than she had ever seen, and drove her to the house while he was out to collect her things.

“That evening he called and he was really remorseful. He asked if we could meet the next day,” she said. She went round, they spoke, and he promised if the EMPCOE event didn’t happen in December, he would stop watching the YouTube videos and collecting the weapons.

“My heart was saying one thing, beating really fast, and my head was saying another.”

She left, and when they met later that day to discuss matters further he seemed just as apologetic, she said, but her body felt uneasy. “We sat down. And we were chatting, and I told him that I had told my parents.”

He had a stick in his hand and was digging into the ground at the time. The digging got more aggressive until he exploded.

Rob “flipped”. Screaming, he threatened her, and said he couldn’t believe she had lied to her parents about what he was like, and said he was going to ruin her life.

She switched on her phone and began recording him.

“He kept saying: ‘I’m gonna fuck you over this. You don’t know what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna fuck you over’.

“I just thought please, please, please, please, please God, let someone see this. I just really wanted to see people walking so I could get out but there was no one around.”

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She made a run for it, sprinting away as fast as she could. He saw she had her phone out and chased her, she said, grabbing it and smashing it on the ground. Anna said she screamed for help. The phone was now several pieces on the floor.

Desperate for any evidence of his behaviour, she said she lunged to pick it up and he pushed her. She fell sharply to the ground, finally managing to get away by running to her car and driving to her parents’ house, ringing the police that evening and starting the process that would see him arrested that Friday and sentenced over a year later.

“Conspiracy theories are known to have negative consequences,” Karen Douglas, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent told i.

An expert in conspiracy theories, she said that people who believe in them are “prepared to take action on the basis of their beliefs can therefore cause harm”. From vaccine hesitancy, climate denial, political apathy, prejudice, violence, and extremism, they can hurt people in numerous ways.

She said she has heard many stories like Anna’s. “One problem is that once a person believes in one conspiracy theory they are likely to entertain others, even about completely unrelated events and circumstances.” People will often go ‘down the rabbit hole’ and get lost to several theories.

‘I felt like a freak’

A year later, the event has taken its toll. In the immediate aftermath, she was prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants by her GP, seeing a therapist and reaching out to Women’s Aid. A year later she’s off the antidepressants and trying to rebuild her life.

“Telling my therapist everything, I felt like a freak,” she said. It was clear her story wasn’t one they encountered everyday.

She also feels guilty for telling the police about the weapons, only mentioning them for fear over his state of mind. Her mother asked her after how she would have felt if he had gone on a rampage with those weapons and killed others.

“I would have felt worse. I couldn’t have said for certain that wouldn’t have happened. The way it was going; I don’t know.”

Since then she’s found a community online, finding other people in Reddit’s ‘QAnon Casualties’ – a subreddit for people who have seen loved ones become radicalised by the QAnon conspiracy. While Rob’s conspiracies extended beyond QAnon, Anna’s found overlap in the stories and pain expressed there. She’s even reached out to a few people on threads, corresponding with them in the comments.

Anna may have felt abnormal in the aftermath of her ordeal, but she now realises how painfully common these stories are becoming. Government statistics showed that of the 697 people directed to Channel, a voluntary programme which safeguards people identified as vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism, right-wing radicalisation was the most common at 43 per cent in April 2019 to March of this year – an increase of 21 per cent from the year before.

“I don’t think I’ll be the first or last person this happens to.”

Names have been changed.

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