Las Vegas, just after 10pm on Sunday,

October 1st 2017. More than 20,000

people were enjoying a music festival on

Las Vegas Boulevard. Country singer Jason

Aldean was on stage when suddenly

his performance was interrupted.

There was like four random shots

had come out which I had mistaken

for fireworks. And evidently there was no

fireworks around, which was then sort of

followed up with 11 minutes of bullets

and automatic gunfire constantly. Now,

I had never been in a situation with

gunfire and we just sort of ran.

Stuart McCormack was at the festival with

his wife
when 64 year old Stephen Paddock holed
himself up

in a hotel room overlooking the event and

started
firing indiscriminately at the people
attending.

It was a case of just trying

to run back to your safe place,

which you didn't really know

where that was. Thankfully,

we were never in the bits where we seen

people
getting harmed, we got away early enough.

Tragically a lot of other people

didn’t. 60 people died. At least

413 were wounded. Another 400 injured

in the panic that followed. Stephen

Paddock was found dead an hour later

with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He'd committed the deadliest mass shooting

by a single gunman in US history.

There was a lot of anger, a lot of grief,

although you didn’t know anybody who
passed

away personally, you think to yourself,

‘Did I rub shoulders with somebody who’s

not gone home?’ My and my wife’s hardest

part was, that was our honeymoon so always

attributed to being married would be, this

happened two days later and we thought we

could never separate those memories

but thankfully at this point we can.

Stuart first got in touch with me last

October
- six years after that fateful day in Las
Vegas.

His message read: "I was just wanting to

reach
out as I’m a survivor of the Las Vegas
mass

shooting and actually suffered from attacks

online. I would also love to discuss the

process of how I fell down the rabbit hole

of conspiracy surrounding my own tragedy”.

I’m Marianna Spring, the BBC’s

disinformation
and social media correspondent and you’re

listening to BBC Trending’s Power series.

I’m currently working on a podcast series

called Why Do You Hate Me, where I’m

investigating extraordinary cases of

online hate. This particular case is about

more than online vitriol though - it’s

about the power of social media to

persuade people to question reality.

I get a lot of messages. Some of them

are abuse directed at me - but others

are from people - like Stuart - who want

me to talk to me about their own stories.

Stuart’s message really stood out to me.

I’ve heard from lots of people who’ve
lived

through attacks and tragedies - and who

have experienced online abuse. But never

from someone who ended up believing

conspiracy
theories about the traumatic event they
survived.

We messaged and chatted several times

before
I headed out to meet him in Northern
Ireland

where he lives. I wanted to find out

more about how Stuart had fallen into,

and then rejected, these conspiracy

theories.

He lives with his family in a picturesque

village by the sea in County Down,

about an hour’s drive from Belfast.

It’s very rainy.

Yes, the weather’s been terrible

for you, since you got here.

It’s normally quite nice in this

area if you can get the sunshine.

When Stuart returned home after the

shootings in Las Vegas he was still
struggling to cope with what he’d
witnessed.
He started reading material online to try
and

help him process his experience. While

doing
that he started reading accounts that were

questioning the official narrative of what

happened on that fateful day in Las Vegas.

Stuart became fixated with one particular

account. It’s username was Weg Oag. He

first came across it on Twitter, now X, but

it was also active on YouTube and Facebook.

Weg’s account posted some factual

content about the shooting,

things like police reports that Stuart

found very helpful. He could spend hours

and hours each night looking at it. He

even went as far as printing it all off,

and storing it away in folders, which he

now keeps in a black bin bag in his attic.

Let’s take a look at this bag.

These are some of the information that

the Weg account would have supplied.

And why did you print it all off?

It was just the fear that it would be taken

down before I could, in my head read it all
but

I haven’t really read much of it. What I did

was
took Weg’s lead in pointing out parts and
then I

would work my way through and sort of note

important
pages that would have been referenced there.

But Weg’s account also discussed a number

of conspiracy theories surrounding the Las

Vegas shootings. One suggesting that a

Saudi prince had been the real target

and the victims were collateral damage,

another, that a hotel worker who tried to

stop the shooter was really a government

plant of some kind – and a third saying

that a helicopter flying over the hotel

that night had been firing the bullets.

I’ve trawled through Weg’s account myself

and what underpins all these conspiracy

theories is the belief that the

shooting had been staged by the

government and security services in some

way, contrary to the evidence available.

Stuart’s increasing fixation with Weg’s

account
started to take its toll. He was
struggling

to process his trauma. He says the

conspiracy
theories Weg’s account discussed were part
of

his way of making sense of what had

happened. But
they also left him feeling paranoid and
isolated.

During the times when you weren't mentally

well with all this I believe when I was

talking on social media that I was being

tracked by America. These were the
theories

in your head that if I went back to

America,
somebody may detain you. And be like
‘you're

getting too close to the secret here’.

Not that I was in the conspiracy game,

but you were pulling out the threads

and you worried about these things,

so you became sort of reclusive with your

information, you know, keep it all to
yourself.

You needed a crutch and this was my crutch,

find the answer and then you can move on.

Stuart asks me whether I can find

out who Weg is. I don’t have much

to go on. The username seems to be a

pseudonym and all of its profiles on

the different social media sites use a

picture of the 16th Century astrologer,

Nostradamus. I send messages to all of the

accounts, but those go unread and
unanswered.

So then I start contacting anyone

I can find that Weg had interacted

with online. One woman who appeared

in Weg’s photos tells me she can’t

remember his real name. Others don’t

respond to me. I’ve almost given up.

But then one person replies saying

he has an old email address for Weg.

I send a message to that address. And wait…

Finally – I receive a response, and he

says he’s was happy to have a call.
When we speak, he tells me his real name is
Joel and he lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
He’s

really polite and friendly when we chat. I

can’t believe I’ve found him. Nor can
Stuart.

Weg’s content played a huge

part in Stuart falling down

the rabbit hole - convincing him that the

shooting was actually a government plot.

Stuart no longer believes these theories but

is
still really intrigued to find out more
about Weg,

the man who helped him through a traumatic

period in the most unorthodox of ways.

And now we’ve found him, Stuart

wants to meet Weg in person.

To be honest, I'm excited to meet somebody

who for a year of my life was quite
important.
Do you know what I mean? It was probably
part of
falling apart, which allowed you to get
better.

It was in that period of when it was

crashing
down. I'm hoping it's like a really good
thing,

you know, to track down somebody who didn't

really
exist and actually have him six feet from
me.

So I ask Weg whether he’d be interested

in meeting Stuart. I explain what a

big impact his content has had on Stuart

and amazingly, quite quickly, he agrees.

He’s somewhat retired from his

Las Vegas conspiracy theory days,

but he says he dedicated so much time to

the
content he wants to know how it affected
his
followers. He has some reservations but
after he’s checked me out online, he’s in.

And so, Weg flies all the way from Arizona

to Belfast ready to meet Stuart face to
face.

We’ve found a quiet cottage to meet in,

a few miles from where Stuart lives.

Weg and Stuart are both nervous

and the relief is palpable when

they finally shake hands and

sit down next to each other.

Hi Stuart. This is Weg. How are

you doing? You know me as Weg I

guess? My real name is Joel. Come on

in. Nice to meet you. Take a seat.

Tell us about Weg, where does that name come

from?

So I made it up and it doesn't come from

anywhere.
I just needed something to register new
internet

accounts that weren't associated with my

true
identity and it was easy to type. I would
never

have been able to guess that I would

eventually
start being called that in real life by
people.

Why did you choose that event then? Why was

it the 1st of October, the mass shooting?

Mass shootings have always been, I

guess, an interest of mine in just

looking into because I want to understand

them, why they happen, what's the cause,

what's the motive? When the Vegas shooting

happened, I felt that there was a huge gap

between what was being reported by the

mainstream
media and what was being reported by just
like
people on YouTube that seemed to have access
to
a lot more resources than the news channels
did.

You mentioned you were interested

in other shootings before. Had you

ever posted about them on social media

before?

No. Maybe like a little question here

and there but never had I gotten this

interested in it to the point where I

felt that I needed to create, you know,

an alternative identity or secret

identity to start to look into things.

Why did it have to be a secret?

If I'm being honest, part of it was

that when I first started researching

I had no idea where it was going to take

me, right? I just wanted a way for it to

be separate from my normal life. I work

for a large corporation in the States,

I contract for them and I didn't want any

chance of it having anything to do with
them.

Despite that in 2018, Weg actually moved

from
Phoenix to Las Vegas. He was able to do
his

day job remotely and spend the rest of the

time
investigating the Vegas shootings in more
detail.

It was a huge decision. It was a huge

decision. But it was very clear to me

that it was what I was supposed to

be doing with my life at that time.

So I picked up my life and my

dog and I moved to Las Vegas,

lived in an apartment three miles from

where
the shooting took place and very embedded
there,
went to the Las Vegas police headquarters
every week to get the evidence drops.
There's

like Wall Street Journal, CNN, Las Vegas

Review-Journal and then there's just me.

Every week I go in there I’d be like this

is
so bizarre that I was able to do this
somehow.

He was able to do so by using

some unorthodox tactics.

Well they seem to want press credentials

so I’ll just make up a company and I’ll

print out a press card and hopefully, I’ll

show
you actually, one of the show and tell
things.

You had a press card?

Yes. Did you actually? Yeah. I had two

of these printed out, I had a lanyard.
But isn’t there also, and
this is the flip side of it,

there’s a risk to that too which is that

people who haven’t had that experience

of investigating stories like that who

risk putting things out there that are

subsequently then aren’t true and then

cause harm? How do you mitigate that?

I don’t think that should be a way to stop

citizen
journalists from showing up at press
conferences

and evidence drops. I think it encourages

pressure
on the powers that be to disseminate
information.

While turning into this alter ego

Weg did seem to give Joel purpose,

meaning and a niche community, he didn’t

profit financially. He’d just kept up his

usual job remotely from Las Vegas. He

moved back to Phoenix in 2019 and both

Stuart and I had the sense he’d genuinely

been trying to find out what had happened.

How much was this for you about feeling

like
you weren't being told the truth because I

think there's a really important question

about
the difference between conspiracy theory
and

then also when people legitimately feel

like
they’re having information withheld from
them.

The Las Vegas police weren't being

transparent because they hadn't provided

the evidence. So it wasn't like there was

like
a conspiracy around that. It was just
like,

we know that people had their body cams,

you've referenced it in your report,
but we don't have that information and so
them withholding that it was a big problem.

I contacted the Las Vegas Police force

about this and they directed me to their

action report on the shooting. In it they

say that the police force is committed to

maintaining transparency with the media

and community during critical incidents,

but say that this must be done correctly

and
that security during large-scale incidents
is

important when it comes to maintaining

the integrity of the investigation.

I’ve encountered too many conspiracy

theorists and trolls to remember. They

take various forms but a lot of them

post maliciously and some go as far as

suggesting those killed in shootings -

like in Las Vegas - never really died,
or that survivors like Stuart are paid so
called
“crisis actors”. Weg’s conspiracy theories

stopped short of that but he was still able

to
reflect on the possible harm they could
cause.

I feel like now you're really reflective

about
your content and about what you shared.
How

much did you think about how conspiracy

theories could be harmful to people,

could be harmful to survivors who

are trying to process something.

How much did you factor in? And how

much do you reflect on that now?

I think that there are real world dangers

to
conspiracy theorising if you want to call
it
that. So at the time my thought was if we
continue
to focus on the facts and the evidence that
that

would help to keep people away from, you

know,
maybe taking action on things that were
based

on conspiracy and not fact based. It was in

the
back of my mind because I felt like, okay,
well,

I’m emotionally stable and healthy and I'm

still,
like, thinking there might be something
going

here. If somebody was not in that

situation,
they're depressed or anxious or, you know,

they have mental problems and they come

across
this that could cause the wrong kind of
actions
to be taken. So yeah, it was always in the
back of my mind that that was a possibility.

And I know Stuart we chatted about the

degree to which you actually felt this

started to become perhaps too much. Do you

want to tell Weg a little bit about that?

It was the vessel for me to search for the

answer, do you know what I mean? So I
would

wait and see any comment that would come

up, you know, I’d have the notifications

on Twitter to see your information coming

through. I would be at the page instantly,

I mean, my real life would stop what I'm

doing
to keep up with what was going on. You
know,

the rabbit hole I was falling down in and

thankfully counselling and stuff pulled me
back

out of that. Getting counselled for mental

health
to try and get out of that. But at that
time,

as I say, it was a crutch that I’d have

used,
this information coming to make peace.
This

to me could have led to me finding out what

was wrong overall. So it was very important.

I think it's interesting because having

spoken to both of you in some ways,

you kind of entered the world of conspiracy

and have both kind of come out come out
the

other side. To what degree do you think

conspiracy
theories were and are important to that
process?

It's normal for us to question and to try

to fill in gaps with story. You can't be

human without that. I think the fact that

people come up with conspiracy theories,
it's not something that's going to go
away. I think what can go away is how

those people know to approach the theories

that they have and meaningful ways that

push the conversation forward and then

two, having authorities and powers that

be being transparent about why you're

why you can't be fully transparent.

Like how to be an ethical conspiracy

theorist?

Yes!

My chat with Stuart and Weg lasted for

more than two hours. I was struck by how

having the conversation face

to face, rather than online,

led to moments of real reflection

and candour between the two men.

Stuart wanted to find a way to rationalise

an event that caused him trauma. Weg
couldn’t

accept the gaps in the official narrative

and
wanted to find his own version of the
truth.

This led to both of them believing

conspiracy
theories they now broadly accept aren’t
true.

The concept of the ethical conspiracy

theorist
interests me but the question of whether
they

can operate in a way that avoids causing

harm, particularly to those who who’ve

already lived through some of the worst

things imaginable - remains an open one.

That’s it this week from BBC Trending.

Thanks
to producers Ben Carter and Emma Close,
and Tom Brignell who mixed this episode.

If you liked this episode please us a rating

or
a review wherever you get your podcasts
from.