This article will examine some of that unverified speculation while also providing some historical perspective on bioweapons development and deployment, as well as an informed opinion about the origins of the Wuhan virus (and what to expect).

First, some perspective on past bioweapons tests. In 2015, the Smithsonian Magazine published an article describing a US Navy bioweapons test in 1950 using a bacterium that produces a red pigment to make it easy to examine its effects:

Beginning on September 26, 1950, the crew of a U.S. Navy minesweeper ship spent six days spraying Serratia marcescens into the air about two miles off the northern California coast. The project was called “Operation Sea Spray,” and its aim was to determine the susceptibility of a big city like San Francisco to a bioweapon attack by terrorists.

At the time, the US military thought that Serratia couldn’t harm humans. The bug was mostly known for the red spots it produced on infested foods and had not been widely linked to clinical conditions. That changed when one week after the test, 11 local residents checked into a Stanford University Hospital complaining of urinary tract infections.

The military had performed similar tests in other cities across the country over the next two decades, until Richard Nixon halted all germ warfare research in 1969. The San Francisco experiment didn’t become public knowledge until 1976.

Keep that above phrase in bold in mind as you read the rest of this article. It is important to note that the US didn’t “invent” bioweapons. Bioweapons have been used in various forms since ancient times, as summarized in this excellent article. After WW-I, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 was signed by 108 nations that “prohibited” the development and use of biological agents (and chemical weapons such as those used in the WW-I trench warfare on both sides) in “civilized warfare.” But that treaty had no verification measures, so nations continued their research and development.

The US actually learned a great deal about bioweapons from our WW-II adversaries, particularly the Japanese at the notorious Unit 731 as summarized here:

Between 1932 and 1945 Japan experiments included testing biological weapons on humans, and attacked 11 Chinese cities with biological weapons. The Japanese, as the US learned at the end of World War II, had been making significant progress learning about traditional biological warfare agents like botulism and anthrax.

The US Army sent several investigators to Japan after the war to interrogate captured Japanese scientists. Leading the team was Dr. Norbert Fell and Lt. Col. Arvo Thompson. Working with Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence team at Supreme Commander Allied Powers (SCAP), Dr. Fell and Thompson learned the full extent of the Japanese program headed by Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.

From 1938-1945 Ishii carried on experiments against POW’s, including US forces at the Mukden POW Camp in northeast China. He directed Unit 731, the secret Japanese unit engaged in human experimentation. Ishii was initially given command of the “Togo Unit” of 300 men, which rapidly grew and acquired additional “cover” identities. The first major BW facility was built at Beiyinhe, some 70km outside Harbin, known locally as the “Zhong Ma Prison Camp. Open air testing on prisoners was conducted at the the officially named “Water Purification Unit 731” at Pingfan near Harbin, a remote, desolate area on the Manchurian Peninsula. Pingfan’s 6 square kilometers housed more than 150 buildings, including administrative buildings, laboratories, workers dormitories, and barracks. By 1945, the Japanese program had stockpiled 400 kilograms of anthrax to be used in a specially designed fragmentation bomb. Studies continued there until 1945, when the Unit 731 complex was leveled by burning it.

And since the Chinese were themselves victimized by Japanese biological warfare in WW-II, it is no surprise that they began research into the development of bioweapons, as well. It is alleged that the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is just a cover for the research and development of Chinese bioweapons. Before digging into Wuhan, we return to the Smithsonian Magazine which published an article about the bird flu in 2017 that is almost a precursor of the spread of the Chinese-originated Wuhan virus. The article was entitled, “Is China the Ground Zero for a Future Pandemic”:

H7N9 first spread from birds to humans in 2013. Since then, there have been five waves of the virus. The fifth wave began in October 2016. By September 2017, it had infected 764 people—far more than any of the four preceding waves. Health officials recently confirmed that there have been 1,589 total cases of H7N9, with 616 of them fatal. “Anytime you have a virus with a 40 percent mortality rate,” says Tim Uyeki, the chief medical officer for the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “that’s very, very serious.”

So far, the only verified means by which patients have acquired the virus is through direct exposure to infected animals. But if H7N9 were to mutate further and develop the ability to pass readily from person to person, it could spread rapidly and kill millions of people worldwide. The potential for disaster has normally cautious medical researchers expressing concern, even suggesting that H7N9 might rival the fierce influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic, which killed between 50 million and 100 million people.

At least two flu pandemics in the past century—in 1957 and 1968—originated in the Middle Kingdom and were triggered by avian viruses that evolved to become easily transmissible between humans.

Here is the money quote from that article:

Western experts say Chinese officials have come a long way since their wobbly handling of the 2002 outbreak of SARS, the severe respiratory disease caused by a previously unknown coronavirus; Chinese apparatchiks initially tried to cover up the epidemic, creating a worldwide scandal.

That’s exactly what the ChiComs did for two months while they were apparently wishing the Wuhan virus away, as discussed previously here – covering up and then trying to shift the blame to other countries.

But what about the origins of the Wuhan virus itself? Could it have been bio-engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?  This linked article is from a virology lab in India that first discovered HIV-1 protein inserts in the COVID-19 virus.

The finding of 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV, all of which have identity /similarity to amino acid residues in key structural proteins of HIV-1 is unlikely to be fortuitous in nature. This work provides yet unknown insights on 2019-nCoV and sheds light on the evolution and pathogenicity of this virus with important implications for diagnosis of this virus.

That suggests that the Wuhan virus was indeed manufactured. Note: this article was subsequently withdrawn, possibly due to pressure from the Chinese government and remains speculation unless/until verified by an official source.

Now for some more informed speculation from a pal who synthesized the below commentary from multiple sources, including here, here, here, here, and here. It is a compelling read but has not been verified or substantiated officially.

There are two different coronaviruses. One is extremely deadly, the other is much less deadly, killing only 1-3%, and mostly old people.

Both of the viruses were manufactured in the Chinese germ warfare lab in Wuhan, China. One of the viruses contains proteins from the HIV-1 (AIDS) virus. The other doesn’t. The HIV proteins were independently discovered by a virology lab in India, and then several weeks later by a lab in the US. In both cases the discovery was quickly withdrawn or “debunked”. Why? In the first case the news was squelched by the Chinese State News Agency complaining to the government of India (i.e., for international relations). In the second case other labs were looking at the virus type that does not contain HIV proteins, when they did not know there were two types.

What happened? The more deadly virus got loose in Wuhan in December 2019. The Chinese government reacted with extreme force that could only be applied by a totalitarian government. They quarantined over 20 million people. Travel was frozen. They rounded up and sequestered anybody who had a fever. Bodies were burned night and day in the crematories for two weeks — many thousands of bodies; we may never know how many, but smoke filled the air for miles downwind. The less deadly virus was quickly released and deliberately spread by Chinese agents as quickly as possible in China, and perhaps even in other countries as well. Why? The less deadly version of the virus gives immunity to the more deadly version, just like cowpox gives immunity to smallpox. By releasing and spreading the less deadly version the Chinese were protecting the majority of their people, and actually protecting people all over the world, from the more deadly version.

The germ warfare tactic would have been to release the less deadly version in China first, let most of the Chinese people get infected and cured, and then to release the more deadly version on their enemies. That would preserve the majority of Chinese while killing the majority of their enemies, and probably the rest of the world. Then China would own the world. I believe it is a fortuitous act of God that the virus got loose.

At first it was theorized that the HIV proteins that were added to the deadly version would transmit AIDS. That is wrong. The COVID-19 version containing HIV-1 proteins does not transmit AIDS. The function of the HIV proteins is, like AIDS does, to delay the body’s immune system response to the virus until the virus spreads more completely throughout the lungs. A Japanese virologist discovered that, like most corona and flu viruses, temperatures as low as 80 deg. F kill the virus. Organ damage can occur as well by having less oxygen in the blood. When the body’s immune system finally recognizes that the body has been invaded by the more deadly type, it over reacts. It is the over-reaction of the body’s own immune system that kills, and that is true with either type of COVID-19 coronavirus, just more so with the more deadly type. The more deadly virus solicits a delayed and more violent reaction from the body’s own immune system.

It is very fortunate for us that the less deadly version of the virus is spreading rapidly in America because the less deadly version of the virus gives immunity to the more deadly version. It is highly likely that people will contract this version and not even know they have it, but it will provide them with immunity to the more deadly strain. Divine intervention!

Although unsubstantiated by any official government agency, the theory is plausible, especially given the proclivities of nations throughout history to wreak havoc on others by any means possible. Bioweapons are just another means to achieve that. We have scratched the surface on that in this article.

Despite the open-source speculation by reputable people, the origin of the Wuhan virus remains unknown – except probably by the Chinese, as the ChiComs run a totalitarian society that is fairly opaque to the rest of the world. What do you have to hide, President Xi? Embarrassment or something much worse? It’s not about saving face; it’s about saving lives.

What we really need from the CDC and NIH – and the federal government in general – is some real information on its origins. Was it manufactured? Were HIV proteins “inserted” into the coronavirus strain that became COVID-19, as theorized above? What does our intelligence community know about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and what really goes on there? Why would National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien break from protocol and publicly accuse the ChiComs of covering up Wuhan virus disclosures? Why isn’t the US going through the UN to demand transparency from the Chinese, given that the World Health Organizations has declared the Wuhan virus to be a worldwide pandemic?

These questions – and many more – need to be officially answered.

The end.