Hundreds of QAnon Believers Gather in Dallas to Greet JFK Jr. ... Who Has Been Dead Since 1999

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Followers of QAnon conspiracies gathered by the hundreds in Dallas on Tuesday, according to local news reports, hoping to greet a popular figure in their tangled theories: none other than the late John F. Kennedy Jr., who died with his wife in a plane crash in 1999.

QAnon is an evolving collection of conspiracies centering on an outlandish claim that government, media and financial elites are cannibalistic Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Many believers think Donald Trump (who has denied many allegations himself of sexual misconduct) secretly does battle with these forces.

The number of QAnon followers is hard to comprehensively track, given that it is fueled online. But it has grown during the last four years to a notable sliver of Americans, according to a recent study — and it has been praised in the past by conservative members of Congress.

Though QAnon began as an online movement in 2017 led by an anonymous poster called Q, the FBI has warned that its believers could engage in real-world violence, which is why Tuesday's gathering in Dallas' Dealey Plaza — where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 — concerned experts like Jared Holt, who conducts terrorism research as a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.

"If they're willing to show up to the 'grassy knoll' thinking JFK Jr. is coming back, it scares me to think of what happens when they get real power," Holt told The Dallas Morning News.

There are already examples of violence linked to QAnon, including at the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington: Members of the mob who stormed the Capitol complex had donned shirts with popular slogans from the ideology and waved flags bearing the letter Q.

In testimony before Congress this spring, the FBI director said authorities were not investigating QAnon itself, as a system of beliefs, but were monitoring how it could fuel illegal activity.

"We focus on the violence and the federal criminal activity regardless of the inspiration. We understand QAnon to be more of a reference to a complex conspiracy theory or set of complex conspiracy theories, largely promoted online, which has sort of morphed into more of a movement," Director Christopher Wray said then.

"Like a lot of other conspiracy theories, the effects of COVID, anxiety social, social isolation, financial hardship … all exacerbate people's vulnerability to those theories, and we are concerned about the potential that those things can lead to violence," he said.

RELATED: Matthew Coleman Indicted for Allegedly Killing Kids Over QAnon Theories, Eligible for Death Penalty

In August, Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, was arrested and accused of killing his two children with a spearfishing gun in Mexico. (He has pleaded not guilty.) According to charging documents, Coleman allegedly told police he was motivated by QAnon conspiracy theories.

A federal law enforcement source recently confirmed to PEOPLE that FBI agents are focusing on Coleman's web browsing history, text and email messages, and postings on message boards and groups that discuss QAnon tenets.

Nothing so nefarious happened in Dallas on Tuesday: QAnon supporters reportedly stood in the rain as cars passed and they waited for the arrival of the younger, long-dead Kennedy.

They recited the pledge of allegiance, they chanted "Let's Go Brandon" (a code-like reference to "F--- Joe Biden") and "Fake News" at reporters, according to journalist Steven Monacelli, who posted his observations from the scene.

Some wore campaign-style T-shirts promoting their dream ticket: "Trump / JFK, JR 2020."

According to QAnon conspiracies, Kennedy Jr. is not dead but rather in hiding after decades and preparing to emerge as part of a second administration for Trump.

RELATED: Trump Reportedly Praised Internet Conspiracy QAnon During Meeting with Mitch McConnell

Some even believe Kennedy is the movement's mysterious leader Q, named for the level of security clearance the online poster purportedly has at his day job as a high-level government official. And it gets weirder: There have been supposed "sightings" of Kennedy in disguise, according to the team behind the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, which tracks the movement.

But of course the man never arrived in Dallas on Tuesday. Some of the assembled blamed the rain. Others said it would still happen but at a Rolling Stones concert in Dallas later that night.

"We'll figure that something happened in the plan that made it not safe to do it," one woman told the Dallas Morning News. "If it doesn't go down how I believe it will, that's okay. We'll figure it just wasn't the right time."