https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-inves…

How William Cooper and his book ‘Behold a Pale Horse’ planted seeds of QAnon conspiracy theory
EAGAR, Ariz. — When authorities killed William Cooper in a burst of gunfire outside his hilltop home in eastern Arizona, he was an author and radio host who had attracted a rabid following among UFO buffs, prisoners and the militia movement.
For them, his book, “Behold a Pale Horse,” and nightly shortwave radio show lifted the veil on how the world actually works.
Through his death in 2001, Cooper’s legacy was cemented. He was seen as a sage and legend. His book would become a defining text for conspiracy-minded people. What might have otherwise been seen as an amateurish hodgepodge of ideas earned gravitas once its author was gunned down.
Though the official story had Cooper killed as deputies tried to arrest him on a local criminal charge, devotees would make him a martyr. Global forces, it was thought, needed him silenced.
Nearly 30 years after its publication, “Behold a Pale Horse” remains a bestseller, finding new audiences for whom Cooper’s warnings — of a cashless society, a socialist order that devalues work, the confiscation of weapons, global leadership usurping the sovereignty of the United States — still resonate.
Though portions of the book are dated, some paragraphs can strike readers as eerily prescient.
Cooper described a CIA plan to induce in people, via drugs and hypnosis, the desire to shoot up schoolyards. Cooper said such incidents would hasten the call for gun control. “This plan is well under way,” he wrote. “The middle class is begging the government to do away with the 2nd Amendment.”
Cooper’s work describes a conspiracy that is timeless: Nearly all that has been told to you is illusion. If you think shadowy forces are pulling the strings, it is because they are. Don’t trust anybody and be on guard. Citizens must soon fight for what they hold dear.
Cooper saw his mission as increasingly urgent.
“Unless we can wake the people from their sleep nothi…