When I started this blog last week to expose the true nature of Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), I never anticipated it would blow up so fast. Traffic to the site is off the charts (16 page views yesterday from the country of Estonia alone)! It’s not the first time I’ve badly misjudged. But now things look poised to downright skyrocket, thanks to my old good buddy, Anthony Watts, editor of his infamous climate denying blog, “Watts Up With That,” who has inserted himself into the effort to expose me, Tony Heller, Exposed. I’ll come back to this juicy bit later.

So it seems my swatting at the hornets nest of deniers has worked like a charm. Queen Watts and his drones are buzzing mad at me for skewering one of their own, Tony Heller. Not willing to discuss all the undisputed facts about Heller’s less-than-stellar reputation that I’ve brought forward on this blog–and yes, despite the crude scatological references you’ll undoubtedly find on this website, it *is* chock full facts–they seem determined to make it about the person behind the blog. This tactic might sound familiar to some of you.

So let’s get into the dirty details of their efforts to unmask Tony Heller, Exposed which deniers have officially hash tagged #ClimateTrollGate (I shit you not).

Their fixation with my identity began shortly after launching the “Tony Heller, Exposed” project. The most direct scrutiny came from a Twitter account, @NJSnowFan, associated with the name “Chris Beal.” I did what any good troll does and entertained myself with their probes into who I might be. After a few days of tweeting back and forth with Beal, he latched on to the idea that Tony Heller, Exposed is really Greg Laden, a science blogger and who writes about climate change and is well-known within online climate debate circles. As you might imagine, Beal could barely conceal his glee at the prospect of landing such a great scoop. Beal’s suspicions caught on within the denier community, and now even Tony Heller himself is “pretty sure” I’m Greg Laden, too:

This is all great fun but I would be remiss to not point out that there is a darker side to the speculation about me. At one point, Beal’s obsession has spilled into intimidation by threatening me with a lawsuit (he doesn’t say for what) and hints that he has contacts within the FBI who, I think he was trying to insinuate, could unmask me:

And Heller himself has made ludicrous, repeated claims on his Twitter feed that I was somehow involved in “stalking” and “identity theft” and that I was a “criminal.” Exhibit A:

It appears their goal is to get me to shut up by scaring me into thinking my identity can be revealed using the subpoena power of a lawsuit. If that’s true, I guess that would make highly effective anonymous online parodies impossible nowadays. I doubt that’s the case. My larger point is that you get the clear sense you’re not talking to people playing with a full deck. They take this game highly seriously and personally. They are fanatically driven.

Anyway, let’s fast forward to yesterday when things start getting really interesting. First, we had this blog post from Anthony Watts expressing his extreme agitation with anonymous “losers” and his intention to “combat” their “dark art” by “call[ing] them out by name.”

Also yesterday, our good buddy Beal sent several Tweets to me hinting that I am going to be outed this Sunday:

And then, also yesterday, this little gem of a tweet from Anthony Watts himself to lil’ ol’ me lands in my Twitter stream:

Watts appears to mean that “it” is my outing. So is this tweet a warning from Anthony Watts that he’s a participant in the effort by Beal to expose Tony Heller, Exposed? Or maybe his tweet is just a friendly bit of advice?

On the one hand, you gotta think Watts would have the common sense to stay above the fray and avoid a bunch of speculative nonsense from audience-level climate deniers like Beal. Plus, I’m parodying Tony Heller, not exactly a significant player in the debate over climate change. So who really gives a shit who’s behind this blog?

But then another part of me wonders that if Watts were smart enough to keep out of it, why would he bother to send a tweet to me? Is it possible Watts is interested in publishing my unmasking on his blog so he can receive credit for what he thinks will be a blowout scandal? Maybe I just didn’t take my paranoia meds this morning.

Either way, stay tuned, things could get really wild around here.

PS, if Heller and company still think I’m Greg Laden, they’re even bigger fucking idiots than I thought.