INCELS: The Deepest Dive, Part 3

Jesse Morton and the Shapeshifter Infiltration

In 2019, after facing charges for their role in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Jeff Schoep and Matthew Heimbach, two prominent neo-Nazis, announced their affiliation with a mysterious NGO called Light Upon Light. The story of this NGO underpins far more than just the strange tale of the incel movement. This little-known organization, founded by two men named Mitch Silber and Jesse Morton, is pivotal in understanding the way that the current domestic terrorism landscape in America has been shaped, in part, by the unlikely collaboration between the US government and the very same terrorists it seeks to stop.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37276529

One of the most influential, foreign-backed terrorists of all time was born in rural Pennsylvania. Jesse Morton, aka Younus Abdullah Muhammed, was born to an affluent family which were direct descendants of founding fathers Samuel Adams and John Morton. Part of the so-called “Family of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution”, Jesse Morton was as All-American as one can get. His grandfather was a prominent attorney in New Jersey but died unexpectedly from lung cancer when his father was in high school. Jesse’s father attended a liberal arts college in Selinsgrove, PA but later dropped out and became a beatnik, obsessed with the environment and overly critical of Western establishments. He married Jesse’s mother, a waitress in rural Pennsylvania, after she became pregnant with Jesse and the two of them moved to a nearby farm commune which grew and sold Marijuana to raise money. Jesse’s mother suffered from mental illness and abused him and his younger sister.

When Morton entered high school he was given an IQ test that revealed he was gifted, and as a result he was sent to an affluent New York high school where he felt largely out of place. Morton ran away from home at age 15 or 16 and became part of the New York City street culture prior to joining a group of Grateful Dead “Deadheads” who lived life on the road, traveling from concert to concert while “exploring consciousness through the use of psychedelics such as LSD and mushrooms.”  Morton and his crew sold drugs to concertgoers to make money.

(Source: Jesse Morton on the Andrew Gold YouTube podcast.)

**It should be noted that Morton’s timeline of his own life differs according to the interview. For example, on the Andrew Gold podcast he claims he ran away from home in 1995, at the age of 15. Jesse Morton was born in September of 1978, which would make him 17 years old in 1995, not 15. In another interview with the Clarion Project he says he ran away from home at 16, which would make the year 1994. 1995 is also the year that Jerry Garcia, the lead singer of the Grateful Dead, passed away from heart failure, sending the “Deadheads” into a tailspin. Morton’s narrative, however, placed him in the thick of Deadhead subculture and touring concerts in 1995, though he doesn’t specify whether those concerts were Grateful Dead concerts (which wouldn’t have been possible) or other 90s bands that adopted a similar subculture. Or perhaps Morton simply misremembered the date that he ran away from home; if he was really 15 years old at the time, this would have been in 1993, two years before Jerry Garcia’s death.**

At age 19 Morton was arrested and went to jail for 60 days, during which time he read the autobiography of Malcom X and was inspired to seek religion and explore Buddhism, Jehovah's Witness, Islam and various other end of times prophecies. Shortly after his release, Morton moved in with an Islamic drug dealer named “Shakur” in Philadelphia and converted to Islam. He later stowed away on a Greyhound bus to Virginia, where he was eventually arrested at a concert for distributing false narcotics and  sentenced to jail time in Richmond. Coincidentally, Jesse’s cell mate was a Moroccan veteran of the Afghan Soviet jihad who further radicalized him and gave him a new name, Younus Abdullah Muhammad. The man told Jesse to leave the prison and go call people to Islam.

After 9/11 Morton found himself sympathetic to Osama bin Laden and became a radical preacher on the streets of New York, advocating for Al Qaeda’s views. Then, in December 2007, he founded his organization Revolution Muslim in conjunction with an Orthodox Jewish convert named Yousef al-Khattab and Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican firebrand cleric who had been deported from the UK. Faisal had a sordid past of being connected to terror attacks around the world, including ties to shoe bomber Richard Reid, the 9/11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, and one of the suicide bombers in the 2005 London attacks.

The goal of Revolution Muslim was “to tap into the power of online radicalization.” The organization coupled street preaching with online propaganda, and Morton boasted that they were the first organization to connect the two. Morton’s expert application of the tenets of radicalization went well beyond the surface-level knowledge expected of a street preacher, demonstrating a deep understanding of behavioral psychology and cognitive neuroscience.  Morton and his associates used the organization’s websites to encourage Muslims to engage in violence against those they believed to be enemies of Islam and to support Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other violent, non-state actors. They posted messages in support of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the November 2009 killings at Ft. Hood and attacks and future threats against Jewish organizations, among others.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American born imam who was on the CIA’s kill or capture list after moving to Yemen to join al-Qaeda, was a close associate of Revolution Muslim and relied on their networks to spread his extremist rhetoric to the West. He was linked to Nidal Hasan, the convicted perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Additionally, three of the future September 11 attacks hijackers separately attended his sermons in the 1990s and early 2001. But al-Awlaki’s modest beginning have led some to ponder if his path towards terrorism may have been averted.

After serving as an imam in San Diego, CA from 1996 to 2001, al-Awlaki attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C and was widely considered to be an upstanding Muslim citizen. He publicly condemned the September 11 attacks and Al Qaeda, was invited to speak at the United States Department of Defense and became the first imam to conduct a prayer service for the Congressional Muslim Staffer Association at the U.S. Capitol. He also led academic discussions frequented by FBI Director of Counter-Intelligence for the Middle East, Gordon M. Snow. Al-Awlaki also served as the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. In 2010, Fox News and the New York Daily News reported that some months after the 9/11 attacks, a Pentagon employee invited al-Awlaki to a luncheon in the Secretary's Office of General Counsel after the U.S. Secretary of the Army suggested he be used as a “moderate muslim” for public appearances.

By July 2002, al-Awlaki had taken heat and came under investigation in the United States for having received money from the subject of a U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation. According to his younger brother, Ammar, the FBI was the reason Al-Awlaki fled the US in 2002.  ‘‘He said, ‘Something happened last night that made me reconsider my stay here in the States,’ ’’ Ammar said. ‘‘ ‘I was told that the F.B.I. has a file on me, and this file could destroy my life. I’m now rethinking my options, and one of them might be as drastic as leaving the States.’ ’’ Documents declassified in 2015 indicate that al-Awlaki was being blackmailed by the US government over his visits to prostitutes. Over the course of the next several years, al-Awlaki’s rhetoric would grow increasingly anti-American, condemning the War on Terror as a “War on Muslims”.  He returned to Yemen in 2004, where he continued to influence several other extremists to join terrorist organizations overseas and to carry out terror attacks in their home countries.

Revolution Muslim frequently posted speeches by Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden which explained the Islamic justification for killing those who insult or defame Muhammad. In May 2010, Morton conspired with Zachary Chesser, of Fairfax County, Va., and others to solicit the murder of an artist tied to the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” movement, including posting a hit list and a message from Anwar al-Awlaki that explicitly called for the artist’s assassination. In April 2010 Morton and Chesser issued a threat to South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker via Revolution Muslim which warned they would end up like Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker who was killed in the street in Amsterdam in 2004. This was in response to a South Park episode with mocked Muhammad in a bear suit. Revolution Muslim posted their addresses and urged readers to “pay them a visit.” Chesser was arrested on July 21, 2010 while boarding a flight to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. He was charged with providing material support to al al-Shabaab and later also pled guilty to communicating threats and soliciting violent extremists to desensitize law enforcement. Four days after Chesser’s arrest, Morton fled to Morocco.

Morton’s other key associate, Samir Khan, was a US citizen from North Carolina who moved to Yemen in 2009 and posted to Revolution Muslim at the instruction of Morton. In his Clarion Project YouTube video, Morton calls Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki his “colleagues” and states that they were embedded within al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in July 2010, when they issued the first edition of Inspire magazine, an English-language magazine supporting al-Qaeda. The FBI press release states that it was Morton who issued the magazine, claiming he believed it to be a product of Khan. The magazine contained calls to kill those that insulted the prophet and included an eight-page article titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of Your Mom,” with detailed instructions regarding the construction of an explosive device. This article would go on to inspire the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. In 2010, the Revolution Muslim website was hacked by an unknown party and redirected to an image of Muhammed. Shortly thereafter, the US shut down the website for posting the addresses of British MPs.

Morton becomes an FBI Informant

Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed on September 30, 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. The men became the first U.S. citizens to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. Jesse Morton was arrested on May 26, 2011 in Morocco and eventually pled guilty to using the internet to solicit murder and encourage violent extremism. He openly acknowledged his role in radicalizing many US citizens, some of whom went on to commit unspeakable violent acts. Threatened with life in prison, Morton negotiated a plea deal that capped his sentence at 15 years. On February 09, 2012, Jesse Morton pled guilty to using the internet to solicit murder and encourage violent extremism, and on May 18, 2012 Morton was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

While being held pending trial, Morton claimed a kind female guard began to let him out of solitary confinement and take him to the library, where he decided to study law. He said that this is when he began his (very rapid) deradicalization process. He also began to cooperate with the FBI at this point, helping them identify Revolution Muslim followerrs who had traveled overseas to join real world caliphates and providing intelligence to aid in their arrest

Morton admitted in his plea that the Revolution Muslim website contributed to the radicalization of many individuals pre-disposed to violence, including Samir Khan. In April 2013, the Boston Marathon bombers utilized the recipe that was issued in Inspire Magazine to build the pressure cooker bombs and the pipe bombs that were thrown at police when they were apprehended. Morton said that his guilt over the Boston bombing also contributed to his deradicalization.

The violence associated with Revolution Muslim continued through November of 2019,  when convicted terrorist Usman Khan was shot dead by police after stabbing and killing two people at a prisoner rehabilitation event while wearing a fake suicide vest. Khan was under priority investigation by MI5 after he was released from prison in December 2018 after serving 8 years for trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. According to an inquest about the incident, “There was intelligence in late 2018 to suggest he intended to “return to his old ways” and commit an attack after release. This intelligence was passed to special branch police but it was not shared with those responsible for managing Khan in the community, including his probation officer.” Khan’s risk to the public was also discussed at regular MI5 meetings, and yet none of the agencies involved raised any objections to his attending the event. “Khan was allowed to attend the event unaccompanied, despite signs he was becoming increasingly isolated and frustrated at failing to find a job,” the inquest heard. A week and a half after the murders, Jesse Morton recorded a YouTube video for the Clarion Project in which he said, “I knew it was Usman Khan. He radicalized inside of my Poltalk (sic) rooms on the internet.”

Other people radicalized by Morton, as listed in the FBI press release, included Colleen R. LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane,” of Pennsylvania, charged in March 2010 with a variety of terrorism-related offenses, including plotting to kill Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who has been the subject of several murder threats based on his artwork depicting Muhammad. LaRose was a subscriber to Revolution Muslim YouTube accounts.

Jesse Morton, the brilliant kid from an affluent family in Pennsylvania who became one of the world’s most influential terrorists, happily agreed to assist the US government in tracking down and arresting each of those people, one by one, before he had even been sentenced. Imagine the wealth of information that the US government was able to obtain from these homegrown extremists. They were indoctrinated in the comfort of their own homes, brainwashed and convinced to go overseas to join real world caliphates, and then expeditiously returned home and “deradicalized”, the contents of their memories scoured by US intelligence officials. This convenient outcome is eerily reminiscient of the so-called “Manchurian Candidate” program executed under US Project Bluebird in the 1950s.

Jesse Morton, the influential Street Preacher and chief al-Qaeda propagandist, claimed to be deradicalized and completely “reformed” during his short and privileged stay in prison, to the point that he was revered by his FBI handlers who were amazed at his willful cooperation. Despite his alleged role as the mastermind of the first and possibly the most influential online radicalization campaign ever developed, one which would be used as a template for every violent extremist organization that followed, and despite his criminal past, Jesse Morton served less prison time than any of the people he radicalized. Jesse Morton, whose colleagues were killed in targeted US drone strikes, served only 3 years and 8 months in prison. And after his release, he would rebuild his influence in a totally different environment - from inside the US government.

Incels.is Involvement

Upon his release from prison, Jesse Morton was immediately handed a position at George Washington University, one of the most prestigious institutions in D.C. Morton claimed to have been completely reformed during his short prison stint, a claim that the counterterrorism community accepted seemingly without resistance. In the blink of an eye, Morton had gone from a US Public Enemy #1 to a highly revered counterterrorism expert at one the country's most prestigious intelligence-adjacent universities. 

The NYPD Analyst who had personally pursued Morton during his days as an Al-Qaeda propagandist was named Mitch Silber. In a surprise plot twist, Silber and Morton teamed up together after Morton’s release from prison and began to study how the Revolution Muslim formula was being used by other online extremist groups such as ISIS. Morton was certainly an expert in this field – he was, in a way, the father of all online propaganda. Mitch Silber had a storied past as well, having worked with the CIA in 2006 to roll out a widespread surveillance program against Muslim Americans that was later revealed to have led to no leads or terror investigations in over 6 years of operation.

Many recognizable names in counterterrorism were studying Revolution Muslim around the time of Morton’s release from prison because ISIS had adopted the same method. Without a doubt, white nationalists and other domestic terrorist groups were not far behind. But things weren’t as perfect as many news articles led the public to believe. Despite being "reformed", Jesse Morton was arrested again soon after his release from prison after being busted in a hotel room with a hooker, numerous bags of cocaine, and crack-smoking paraphernalia. And yet, right after Morton's relapse and subsequent arrest, Mitch Silber approached him with another opportunity - a new Countering Violent Extremist (CVE) NGO called Parallel Networks.

In 2019, a Parallel Networks sub-program called Light Upon Light infiltrated the incels.is forum, and Diego Galante, one of the two founders of the forum became an LUL Shape Shifter, even co-authoring an article for Homeland Security Today magazine under the pseudonym Alexander Ash. Similarly, Naama Kates, the ex-Hollywood actress who hosts the Incel Podcast on Spotify, also came out as a Shape Shifter shortly after the premiere of her first episode. During that time, Morton and Kates were both aware of the incel site's sister website, Sanctioned Suicide, and the horrific abuses going on there. According to allegations from community members, the incel forum was intended to act as a funnel to drive members to the suicide site where they were encouraged to kill themselves and then sold poison. Some users also urged people ready to commit suicide to do so live via Discord so that others could watch, with the videos potentially resurfacing on popular gore websites.

A number of other sites linked to the two owners of incels.is also functioned in a seemingly exploitive way, including Looksmax.org, a site which advertises black market performance enhancing drugs, among other things, and which also advertises Sanctioned Suicide to its users. At the time of the LUL infiltration there was an even darker network of incel sister sites that trafficked in child pornography. Although the ownership of those sites was less transparent, many likely belonged to the notorious late pedophile Nathan Larson.

The US Department of Homeland Security was funding Parallel Networks with at least two grants from the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program during the time period in which LUL was intimately involved with this dark network of internet sites:

EMW-2020-GR-APP-00067 - Counter Extremism Project

EMW-2021-GR-APP-00099-Cure Violence Global

Why did DHS and other counterterrorism agencies start expressing such intense interest in the incels.is forum around 2019? According to experts in the field of counterterrorism, the incels.is forum was infiltrated by an emerging terrorist threat known as militant accelerationists. These posters use easily recognizable extremist tactics, such as charged rhetoric, propaganda, meme dissemination, etc., in an attempt to radicalize the members of the incel forum by persuading them to direct their hatred of themselves toward society. Incels are encouraged to commit mass shootings, rape and torture of women, attacks on US infrastructure, and even pedophilia. Accelerationists are widely believed to be a mostly decentralized movement, though some in the field have pointed out evidence of connections to Russia, the Islamic State, and other foreign agents using the movement to incite terrorism in the United States and other Western countries. Others have theorized that the US government itself is responsible for some of this subversive activity, and point to well known historical FBI operations such as COINTELPRO. 

It makes sense that in 2019, amid a litany of news stories referencing incel violence, DHS would fund interventions in the forum. However, the state of the forum only got worse. LUL essentially led more people to incels.is by it giving them publicity via their famous Shape Shifters, such as Schoep and Heimbach, and of course, by Naama Kates' podcast. At the same time, Parallel Networks collaborated with the ICSVE, a massive CVE run by Anne Speckhardt and funded by global organizations such as the UN Alliance for Peace Building, the State of Qatar, Facebook Counterterrorism department, and the US State Department. 

Sanctioned Suicide and Morton’s Sudden Death

As this activity boiled on in the background, the death toll associated with Sanctioned Suicide continued to grow, and along with it, the number of enraged family members of its victims. In December 2021 the New York Times released an expose into the matter in which they doxxed the owners of Sanctioned Suicide. They also used the Anonymous hack of Epik web services to publicly link the two owners to the incel forum. Amid the backlash, the House E&C committee initiated an investigation into Sanctioned Suicide.

That very same day, Jesse Morton was found dead in a Florida hotel room. His cause of death has never been disclosed, and a FOIA request for this information submitted to Lake County, Florida was denied. A comment on a recent thread made by Christian Picciolini gives us our first and only clue regarding the cause of Morton’s death, which according to the poster and undisputed by Picciolini, was suicide. The person who made the claim is Brian Levin, former Director for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State University at San Bernadino. Given that he knew Jesse Morton personally, his comment holds weight and validity.

In response to the New York Times expose, Diego Galante and Lamarcus Small both publicly claimed to have stepped down from operating the sites and installed new administrators (some of whom were self-proclaimed neo-Nazis) in their place. This exit would not last long for Small, who openly re-emerged as the administrator of the incel forum. The administration of Sanctioned Suicide was reportedly handed over to a transgender person called “Rain and Sadness”, but there is evidence that Lamarcus Small still participates in managing the site. The site is still registered to Lamarcus Small’s company Vokl, LLC which he has also used to file DMCA takedown notices against his incel brand.