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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 24/08/2026

We put together this helpful diagram to show participation in various organizations, chats & arrests by 6 of the individuals mentioned in our new story about how Andrew Nary, a pastor’s son, started a neo-Nazi militia called Automata & got arrested by the FBI: decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 21/08/2026

Jennefer Harper @jennefer.bsky.social and Wiley D. Cope’s @wileycope.bsky.social investigation traces Andrew Nary’s path from radicalized high school senior to federal defendant. Read the full story here: decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

decoherence.media

The rise and fall of Automata

The inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 21/08/2026

The recording was posted in December 2024 by a Telegram channel that published private messages from Tennessee Active Club members. Media compilation by Appalachia Research Club @appalachiarc.bsky.social.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 21/08/2026

From The rise and fall of Automata: A leaked recording of a '23 voice chat w/Andrew Nary & Aiden Cuevas- a 3rd man known as “Roman” demands deletion of compromising photos that jeopardize his planned enlistment in the Army. "Roman" is not charged in their case & his identity remains unconfirmed.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Collecting and analyzing years of Telegram exports takes time and money, to support our work, consider donating or subscribing to Decoherence Media decoherence.media/donate/

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Donate

We are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Decoherence Media verified five years of Telegram exports, court records and public documents to trace Nary from radicalized high school senior to federal defendant. Research contribution by Appalachia Research Club @appalachiarc.bsky.social

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social from @openmeasures.io told us: “Figures, organizations, and stylings of these spaces are highly disposable. The branding and strategies extremist movements adopt are fluid, but the driver of that activity is constant."

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

By 2026 the network was hunting snitches in its own ranks. Cuevas allegedly paid an undercover officer $1,500 for guns with obliterated serial numbers — in part, prosecutors say, to “take out” a former associate. Both pleaded not guilty.

A screenshot of a portion of a legal document in the Nary and Cuevas federal case.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Decoherence Media was able to identify 2 members of the North 'Bama Brigade chat with ties to the transnational neo-Nazi network The Base: a Bulgarian member using the alias “Buron” & another going by “Skin,” from England, who was active in other chats with members from The Base’s Dutch cell.

Propaganda for the neo-Nazi group The Base. A Bulgarian member appears to be sitting on a couch with a flag for the Base hanging on the wall behind him. The individual is wearing a skull mask, a camo jacket, black gloves, and brandishing a pistol. His eyes in the photo have been redacted. The propaganda piece has the words “Bulgaria” written on top.

A screenshot from the North ‘Bama Brigade chat showing a member using the alias “Skin” posting photos of himself. The photos show a pudgy man wearing a black flight jacket, dark cargo pants, and black boots with red laces. His face is redacted.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Out of that network came the North 'Bama Brigade (NBB), founded by Aiden Cuevas to build a pro-white community in northern Alabama. Members Brandon Crews and Logan Gulbranson were arrested in January 2025 over an alleged break-in at a Mississippi nuclear site

Members of the North ‘Bama Brigade pose in front of a tent draped with a swastika flag. All of their faces are redacted and some are wearing Nazi insignia.

A group of nazis pose for a propaganda photo shoot for the North ‘Bama Brigade. Andrew Nary is on the right. He is shirtless and with a shaved head. His face is blurred and he is making a Sieg Heil salute.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Automata folded in 2021 before resurfacing in 2023, now sharing considerable organizational overlap with the rapidly growing Active Club network. Nary even tried to start his own Active Club chapter, and networked with other chapters in the Southeast.

Graphics from a September 2024 video posted to the Southern Sons Active Club Telegram channel, showing the geographic breakdown of different neo-Nazi organizations in that ecosystem: Automata in West Virginia, North 'Bama Brigade in Alabama, Southern Sons in Georgia and South Carolina, and Mississippi Active Club in Mississippi. The color scheme is black and blue with white accent.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

On August 18, 2026, Kai Nix was sentenced by a federal judge to 5 months imprisonment, 5 months home detention, and 3 years supervised release after pleading guilty last September to a charge of selling a stolen firearm.

A screenshot from a legal doc filed on August 18, 2026 after Kai Nix’s sentencing hearing showing he must serve 5 months in prison.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

One member of Automata was Kai Nix, an active soldier in 2024 who was indicted for firearms trafficking & lying about his involvement in white supremacist groups. Three years before that, Nix was posting in an Automata chat about assaulting a bystander at a Patriot Front march.

Image shared by Kai Liam Nix to the Automata group chat with red arrows on the image to identify himself amongst members of Patriot Front (Image from Telegram, July 3, 2021).

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Automata's chats also had an early crossover with the notorious sextortion network 764. At least 3 members sat in a chat alongside 764's founder Bradley Cadenhead, who was sentenced to 80 years in prison for possessing child pornography.

A screenshot of the Automata members-only chat showing “Roman” posting a screenshot of ellavator chat showing three Automata members, including Kai Nix (alias “Italy Redacted”) (Screenshot from Telegram, July 2021). URL blurred by Decoherence Media.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Jeff Tischauser @jtischauser.bsky.social from SPLC told Decoherence Media, “what's notable here is that we don't have more Nary's running around. Because guys like Nary come to imagine their parent's conservatism as being too soft and too cowardly to do what needs to be done to save the white race”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

"It just occurred to me almost all of us active are underage," a member wrote in 2021. Andrew Nary wanted more "17 and 18 yr olds." One offered $10 every two weeks out of chore money. Another quit when his mom installed monitoring software on his phone.

Excerpts from the Automata chat revealing that many of their members were minors.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

Andrew Nary founded Automata in 2020, a white-power militia w/ accelerationist aesthetics & plans for “Skouria” a whites-only micronation on 24 acres in the North Caroline mountains — a self-billed “Totalitarian Theocracy” whose affiliates owed $10/month plus 2% of their pay to “His Lordship” Nary.

A map detailing Andrew Nary’s plan for a white ethnostate called “Skouria” in the mountains of North Carolina (from Telegram, May 2021).

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

At age 18, Andrew Nary mapped out a white ethnostate in North Carolina, and required his mostly teenage members to pay for it. Six years later the FBI arrested Andrew Nary and his associate Aiden Cuevas after they tried to buy machine guns from an undercover.

A photo of Andrew Nary wearing military fatigues and a skull mask. Photo uploaded to Telegram on April 10, 2021.

A cropped family photo of Andrew Nary from Facebook, May 19, 2021.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/08/2026

NEW from Jennefer Harper @jennefer.bsky.social & Wiley D. Cope @wileycope.bsky.social! The rise and fall of Automata: The inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI. decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

decoherence.media

The rise and fall of Automata

The inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 13/07/2026

We are aware of an X account that’s impersonating our outlet and claims to have “identified” the person behind another far-right troll account. Please ignore them and report the account for impersonation.

Screenshot of X account that's impersonating Decoherence Media, claiming to have identified the person behind a far-right troll account

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/05/2026

Building on the work of bsky.app/profile/ddos... and bsky.app/profile/emma...

bsky.app

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 20/05/2026

Building on the work of bsky.app/profile/ddos... and bsky.app/profile/emma...

bsky.app

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 18/05/2026

We just passed 500 names, including 220 who haven't previously been reported on in connection with Epstein. Thanks to everyone who's sent us tips, we're identifying more people every day.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

This project took nearly 2 months. If you value our work, consider donating or subscribing to Decoherence Media, we're a completely reader-supported nonprofit newsroom. decoherence.media/donate/

decoherence.media

Donate

We are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

There are still thousands of people who we haven’t yet identified. You can view them on the “People” page, filtering to show only “Unknown” people. If you have information about any of the Unknown individuals, you can send us a tip using this form: forms.gle/1Cirkot2a6pg...

forms.gle

Epstein.Photos · New name

Submit a name for an unidentified person on the epstein.photos website. If you have any questions, watch our video about how to submit a tip and read the guide we published about the epstein.photos p...

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

The “Search” pages lets you search photos by person name or document number. We can see all photos containing Ghislaine Maxwell and Jean-Luc Brunel, with boxes around everyone’s faces.

Screenshot of Search page of epstein.photos website, showing 44 images that contain both Ghislaine Maxwell and Jean-Luc Brunel.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

The “Home” page shows a network visualization of everyone we’ve identified: nodes are people and edges between nodes are when the two people have appeared together in a photo in the Epstein files.

Screenshot of home page of epstein.photos website, showing an interactive network visualization of people in photos from the Epstein files. Nodes are people and edges between nodes are when the two people have appeared in the same photo.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

We just published a guide to the website that covers how to use it, our methodology, and how we decided who to name. decoherence.media/we-identifie...

decoherence.media

We identified more than 400 people in photos from the Epstein files

170 haven't been reported on before, explore them all with our new website: epstein.photos

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

We also found a picture of Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Guana island, standing a few feet away from alleged sex trafficker Jean-Luc Brunel. Ghislaine Maxwell sent Epstein an email in December 2006, “Sergey Brin and his g'firend Anne (my friend) are going stay at Guana..”

Picture of Sergey Brin on Guana Island standing a few feet away from alleged sex trafficker Jean-Luc Brunel: https://epstein.photos/search/people/person_598/?photo=EFTA00254398-00049.webp

Reference picture of Sergey Brin, courtesy of Alamy images

Screenshot of December 2006 email from Ghislaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein saying “Sergey Brin and his g'firend Anne (my friend) are going stay at Guana..”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

Bahraini Prince Sheikh Mohamed Al Khalifa is shown in a picture sent from Tancredi Marchiolo to Epstein. Marchiolo wrote in an October 2013 email to Epstein “im coming to paris Monday and leaving Tuesday with the prince of Bahrain you in town?” Epstein replied “monday night free.”

Picture of Bahraini Prince Sheikh Mohamed Al Khalifa in an email sent to Jeffrey Epstein: https://epstein.photos/search/people/person_9510/?photo=EFTA01181881-00000.webp

Reference picture of Sheikh Mohamed Al Khalifa: https://web.archive.org/web/20260410040355/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eph6_cpXEAACASk?format=jpg&name=orig

Screenshot of email to Jeffrey Epstein suggesting the Prince met with Epstein, courtesy of Jmail.World: https://jmail.world/thread/EFTA01955832

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

These include co-founder of MTV John Sykes, currently President of Entertainment Enterprises at iHeart Media. He is shown in Epstein’s private plane, and his name is in a flight log from October 2004.

Picture of John Sykes, co-founder of MTV and current President of Entertainment Enterprises at iHeart Media, on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane: https://epstein.photos/search/people/person_4945/?photo=EFTA00003326-00000.webp

Reference picture of John Sykes, via Alamy images: https://c7.alamy.com/comp/CDDWY0/jan-1-2011-new-york-new-york-us-k35149rman-auction-to-benefit-room-CDDWY0.jpg

Screenshot of John Sykes’s name in Epstein’s flight logs (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_006465.jpg), courtesy of Jmail.World: https://jmail.world/drive/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_006465.jpg

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 06/05/2026

NEW: We used facial recognition to identify more than 400 people who appear in photos from the Epstein Files and mapped out their connections. 170 of them haven’t previously been reported on in connection with Epstein. Explore the data with our new website: epstein.photos

epstein.photos

Epstein Network

Explore the network of people who appear in the Epstein files and see how they're connected.

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Reposted by Decoherence Media

jennefer harper @jennefer.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Absolutely thrilled to have chatted with Jake Hanrahan @popularfront.co about our work on Rope Culture www.patreon.com/posts/skelet...

patreon.com

Skeleton Key 17: Exposing Iron March's "Rope Culture" | POPULAR FRONT

Get more from POPULAR FRONT on Patreon

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Reposted by Decoherence Media

jennefer harper @jennefer.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

& here is the FashyLeaks website where you can search data from both the Iron March forum and Rope Culture data sets: fashyleaks.com

fashyleaks.com

FashyLeaks

Search interface for Nazi forum datasets, including Iron March and Rope Culture.

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Reposted by Decoherence Media

Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

Decoherence Media is a reader-supported nonprofit newsroom. You can support our work investigating the authoritarian right by donating or subscribing.

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Donate

We are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

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Reposted by Decoherence Media

Tristan Lee @tristanl.ee · 16/04/2026

We're trending on X now lmao

Screenshot of X's "Today's News", saying "Decoherence Media Identifies Alexander Norden from Rockaway Park"

Full text:

Decoherence Media Identifies Alexander Norden from Rockaway Park, New York City, as Operator of X Account @Howlingmutant0

Decoherence Media revealed Alexander Norden from Rockaway Park, New York City, as the operator of the X account
@Howlingmutant0, which has nearly 200,000 followers including Vice President JD Vance. The account is known for posting jokes about rape and the Holocaust.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

Decoherence Media is a reader-supported nonprofit newsroom. You can support our work investigating the authoritarian right by donating or subscribing.

decoherence.media

Donate

We are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

We confirmed the match using a data breach search website: the same phone number is linked to both the name “Alexander Norden” and the Substack account “HowlingMutant,” which links to the X account and uses the same profile picture.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

Pictures and biographical information from Norden’s LinkedIn and social media closely matched information that HowlingMutant had posted, including employment history and living in New York.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

The identification came as a result of a HowlingMutant post about the J.G. Ballard novel “Concrete Island.” The Goodreads page for the book showed a review from a user named “Alex Norden.”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

HowlingMutant went on the podcast of Patrick Casey, the former leader of American neo-Fascist group Identity Evropa. He said he knows that “a lot of political people” don’t follow him because of his posts “about being a retarded pedophile or something.”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

He has also posted about the Holocaust, writing that it’s “been used as a cudgel against any right wing movements for years.” He’s joked about being sexually attracted to a pile of shoes at the Holocaust Museum, and referenced Holocaust denial tropes like “wooden doors.”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

Earlier this week, Decoherence Media reported on 8 fascist, antisemitic, or otherwise far-right accounts that JD Vance followed on X. HowlingMutant was one of them. He frequently posts about rape and refers to himself as a rapist, and makes antisemitic jokes.

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 16/04/2026

NEW: We’ve identified the man who runs the far-right troll account on X “HowlingMutant,” whose jokes about rape and the Holocaust have earned him nearly 200,000 followers, which include Vice President JD Vance. His name is Alexander Norden, from Rockaway Park in New York City.

decoherence.media

Far-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked

“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 13/04/2026

Vance’s far-right activity doesn’t stay on X: in 2024 he defended the baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were eating pets. A Hitler-quoting account with username “Captivedreamer7” took credit for putting “the whole situation back onto JD Vance's radar.”

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Decoherence Media @decoherence.media · 13/04/2026

“Rogue Scholar Press” publishes books from proto-fascist and fascist authors, has made jokes about Holocaust denial talking points like “six million,” and has described Hitler as “the lesser evil.”

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