2006 Ralph Baric Paper Describes Synthetic 'Scapegoat' Viruses Engineered Digitally With False Origin 'Fingerprints' to Mislead Investigators
"This powerful technique provides the bioterrorist with a ‘scapegoat’ option; leaving a sequence signature that misdirects efforts at tracking the true originators of the crime," writes Baric.
A 2006 paper authored by Dr. Ralph Baric—the University of North Carolina virologist widely recognized as the leading architect of chimeric coronavirus genomes and in silico viral assembly techniques—openly describes how synthetic viral genomics could be used to create viruses digitally, containing misleading genetic “fingerprints” designed to redirect investigators toward a false geographic or evolutionary origin.
The SARS-CoV-2 pathogen of the COVID-19 pandemic would be found to possess exactly the three signature spike features that Baric and his collaborators had explicitly proposed engineering into chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses in the 2018 DARPA/EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal: a furin cleavage site (PRRA) insertion at the S1/S2 junction, targeted human-optimizing mutations throughout the receptor-binding domain (including the critical Q498 residue), and the two-proline (V1060P/L1061P) substitution to stabilize the spike protein in its prefusion conformation.
Also in 2018, Baric was granted U.S. Patent 9,884,895 B2 for “Methods and compositions for chimeric coronavirus spike proteins,” which claims proprietary techniques for modular domain swapping and seamless synthetic computer assembly of coronavirus spikes.
Twelve years earlier, in the very same 2006 paper that first laid out the theoretical framework for such engineered viruses, Baric had already described how computer-designed genomes could be deliberately designed to serve as “scapegoats,” carrying misleading sequence signatures that would misdirect any investigation into their true origin.
The 2006 paper, titled Synthetic Viral Genomics: Risks and Benefits for Science and Society, was published as part of a broader biodefense and synthetic biology review examining the future risks posed by synthetic genomics, reverse genetics, and recombinant viral engineering.
In one of the paper’s most striking passages, Baric explained that synthetic viral genomes could be intentionally engineered in the computer (in silico) to resemble what are said to be naturally circulating strains from a particular region or time period, thereby creating what he called a “scapegoat” sequence signature.
Baric wrote:
“Synthetic viral genomes can be designed to be identical with exact virus strains circulating in any given location from any year. This powerful technique provides the bioterrorist with a ‘scapegoat’ option; leaving a sequence signature that misdirects efforts at tracking the true originators of the crime.”
The statement is significant because it explicitly describes that genomic lineage tracing—one of the primary methods used to infer the geographic origin and evolutionary history of viruses—could theoretically be manipulated through synthetic genome design.
Meaning, according to Baric’s own description, a synthetically assembled virus could potentially be engineered to appear on the computer screen as though it naturally emerged from a different country, outbreak cluster, or evolutionary lineage.
Even now, years after the COVID pandemic, top scientific journals are claiming no one has been able “to solve the mystery of where a virus estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the end of 2022, and which cost the global economy up to US$16 trillion, came from.”
Could the very “scapegoat” mechanism Ralph Baric described in 2006—the deliberate engineering of synthetic viruses with misleading genetic fingerprints designed to redirect origin investigations—explain why, despite years of intense international scrutiny, the true provenance of SARS-CoV-2 remains unresolved?
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Paper Described Engineering Viral Genomes to Mimic Purported Naturally Circulating Strains
Earlier in the paper, Baric described how synthetic genomics and seamless genome assembly techniques could be used to reconstruct viruses directly from published sequence databases.
He wrote:
“any virus genome could be synthetically reconstructed from sequence databases, assuming that the sequence is correct.”
Baric also explained that computer assembly systems made it possible to systematically construct large viral genomes while removing evidence of the assembly process from the final sequence.
The paper described “No See’m” assembly approaches in which engineered restriction-site junctions used during cloning could later be removed from the finished genome.
According to the paper:
“No See’m sites can be used to insert foreign genes into viral, eukaryotic, or microbial genome or vector, simultaneously removing all evidence of the restriction sites that were used in the recombinant DNA manipulation.”
Meaning, the engineered assembly markers used during in silico construction would not necessarily remain visible in the final genomic sequence.
Baric explained that synthetic genomics provided capabilities beyond traditional recombinant DNA techniques because synthetic genomes could be assembled without retaining the obvious cloning signatures typically left behind during older molecular engineering methods.
The paper stated:
“Recombinant viruses generated from classic recombinant DNA techniques will carry the signature of the parental virus used in the process as well as novel restriction sites that were engineered into the genome during the cloning process. In contrast, synthetic viral genomes can be designed to be identical with exact virus strains circulating in any given location from any year.”
That passage directly preceded the paper’s “scapegoat” discussion.
Synthetic DNAs Provided ‘Unparalleled Power’ for Nefarious Use
The paper first framed synthetic genomics as a system capable of constructing viral genomes with deliberately chosen sequence characteristics.
Baric wrote:
“Synthetic DNAs and systematic assembly approaches also provide unparalleled power for building genomes of any given sequence, simultaneously providing novel capabilities for nefarious use.”
The statement is significant because it openly describes synthetic genomics as providing unprecedented capability to intentionally construct viral genomes with customized sequence features.
Viral Genome Sequences as Geographic ‘Fingerprints’
Before introducing the paper’s “scapegoat” concept, Baric first explained that viral genome sequences function as forensic identifiers that can be used to determine likely geographic origin.
The paper states:
“genome sequences represent fingerprints that allow geographic mapping of the likely origin of a given virus.”
Meaning, according to the paper, investigators use sequence signatures and genomic comparisons to infer where a virus likely emerged from and how it evolutionarily relates to other strains.
Baric then contrasted traditional recombinant DNA approaches with newer synthetic genomics systems.
According to the paper:
“Recombinant viruses generated from classic recombinant DNA techniques will carry the signature of the parental virus used in the process as well as novel restriction sites that were engineered into the genome during the cloning process.”
Meaning, older recombinant engineering methods could leave behind detectable genomic evidence of laboratory manipulation, including restriction-site signatures and identifiable parental backbone traces.
The paper then contrasted that with synthetic genomics approaches.
Baric wrote:
“In contrast, synthetic viral genomes can be designed to be identical with exact virus strains circulating in any given location from any year.”
Meaning synthetic assembly systems could theoretically be used to construct viral genomes specifically designed to resemble alleged naturally circulating strains from a chosen region, outbreak, or evolutionary lineage.
The ‘Scapegoat’ Option & False Attribution Scenarios
Baric then described what he called a “scapegoat” option.
The paper stated:
“This powerful technique provides the bioterrorist with a ‘scapegoat’ option; leaving a sequence signature that misdirects efforts at tracking the true originators of the crime.”
Meaning, Baric was explicitly describing how synthetic viral genomes could theoretically be engineered with intentionally misleading sequence signatures designed to redirect forensic attribution toward another source.
The paper then escalated the scenario further.
Baric wrote:
“Even better, the approach could be used to build mistrust and/or precipitate open warfare between nations.”
The statement is notable because it openly discusses the geopolitical implications of engineered genomic attribution.
Baric then provided a hypothetical scenario involving foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), laying out how a synthetic outbreak strain could potentially be designed to resemble viruses associated with specific foreign regions.
He wrote:
“A simple example might involve the use of the picornavirus foot and mouth disease virus, which is not present on the North American continent, yet is endemic in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.”
Baric explained that geographically distinct FMDV strains contain unique sequence signatures that allow investigators to determine likely geographic origin.
The paper stated:
“Geographically distinct FMDV strains contain unique sequence signatures allowing ready determination of origin.”
Baric then described the synthetic attribution scenario directly:
“A North American outbreak of an infectious ‘synthetic’ FMDV virus containing signature sequences reminiscent of strains found in select Middle East or Asian nations that are viewed as terrorist states by the US government would inflame worsening tensions and could provide a ready excuse for military retaliation.”
Meaning, Baric was openly discussing the possibility that synthetic genomics could theoretically be used to create genetically misleading outbreak strains capable of triggering geopolitical consequences or false attribution.
The paper also stated that synthetic reconstruction methods could potentially allow infectious viral genomes to be assembled without requiring direct access to physical virus stocks.
Baric wrote:
“It is conceivable that a bioterrorist could order genome portions from various synthesis facilities distributed in different countries throughout the world and then assemble an infectious genome without ever having access to the virus.”
Paper Detailed the Capabilities & Implications of Synthetic Genomics & Reverse Genetics
Throughout the paper, Baric repeatedly described that advances in synthetic biology, reverse genetics, and genome assembly technologies were creating unprecedented capabilities for constructing and modifying viruses.
The paper stated:
“tools exist for simultaneously modifying the genomes for increased virulence, immunogenicity, transmissibility, host range and pathogenesis.”
The paper also stated:
“Synthetic biology enhances all of the opportunities provided by recombinant DNA research. The main advantages of synthetic genomics over classic recombinant DNA approaches are speed and a mutagenesis capacity that allow for whole genome design in a cost effective manner.”
The paper specifically discussed:
synthetic reconstruction of viruses from sequence databases,
assembly of full-length coronavirus genomes,
recovery of recombinant SARS-CoV,
seamless “No See’m” genome assembly systems,
synthetic spike glycoprotein reconstruction,
and the possibility of manufacturing viruses carrying intentionally misleading genomic signatures.
‘Humanizing’ Zoonotic Viruses
Baric’s paper also discussed the low cost and rapid speed of synthetic construction systems.
Baric wrote:
“Project costs would likely be less than $50K, including synthesis, recovery and distribution.”
The paper then discussed additional engineering possibilities involving adaptation of zoonotic viruses.
According to the paper:
“Another possibility may be to optimize replication efficiency by optimizing for human codon use, especially useful in ‘humanizing’ zoonotic viruses...”
Meaning, the paper openly discussed modifying animal-origin viruses in ways intended to improve compatibility with human cellular systems.
Strikingly, the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome given to us by Chinese collaborators of Baric’s in late 2019 carried exactly the human-adapted spike features Baric had discussed in 2006: a furin cleavage site insertion and receptor-binding domain mutations optimized for human ACE2 binding, that he and his collaborators explicitly proposed engineering into chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses in the 2018 DARPA/EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal.
In the 2006 paper, Baric then emphasized how these synthetic systems could assemble a genome “within weeks.”
The paper states:
“In both examples, standard recombinant DNA approaches would be difficult and tedious, while synthetically derived genomes could be readily manufactured within weeks.”
Bottom Line
Ralph Baric’s 2006 paper provided a detailed blueprint for how to build a virus digitally that could never be traced back to its true creator.
It described how to reconstruct viruses directly from sequence databases, assemble them seamlessly using “No See’m” techniques that erase all laboratory scars, and deliberately engineer them with misleading “scapegoat” genomic signatures designed to redirect any origin investigation.
In 2018, the very same year Baric and his collaborators proposed inserting the furin cleavage site, human-optimized RBD mutations, and 2P stabilization into chimeric coronaviruses in the DARPA/EcoHealth DEFUSE project, Baric was also granted U.S. Patent 9,884,895 B2—a patent that claims proprietary methods for modular domain swapping and seamless synthetic assembly of coronavirus spikes.
Those three engineered features appeared together for the first time in SARS-CoV-2.
Yet despite years of international investigation, the origin of the virus that killed tens of millions and cost the world economy up to $16 trillion remains officially unsolved.
The question now hangs in the air: Was the enduring “mystery” of SARS-CoV-2’s provenance the predictable result of the very scapegoat mechanism Baric described in 2006?
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Thank you Jon:
The audacity of what Baric and others have done and published under the direction and auspices of military-minded ‘health’ authorities is not quite sickening, until we realize how similar the institutional idealism must be to controlled genocide.
Some can see people using tech for engineering with pride, publications about and distributions of toxins, work welcomed by science reviewers (!), if not laudatory biomedical peers.
Does this paper or author anchor the repeating scenario that ensures deadly and detection-evading products can be tested in a public ‘healthcare’ program or mistreated in procedures described as generally safe or hygienic?
There are doctors now, especially from Europe, who know Baric’s work, but will not speak of it.
As I’ve written before: I attempted to recover an unvaccinated loved one from hospital, after illness following Covid exposure and severe sudden disorientation in 2024. It took days to find a doctor. So I began putting together plausible mechanistic hypotheses. Day 4 I finally got to see a doctor and had taken in Baric’s and others’ science papers to discuss with the doctor in a teaching hospital, the biological mechanisms and effects from engineered toxin exposure. I’d start by asking to discuss symptoms that failed to fit the doctors’ standard medical diagnostic guidelines. I spoke to the doctor with calm, knowing plausible biomechanisms he didn’t seem to understand in ‘his’ work with his patient. The Doc didn’t like me as an advocate talking about biology,
I was focussed. He was fast frustrated, verging on anger. He started by asking what qualifications I had to show I really knew what I was talking about (!!)… because he had no time for some Wikipedia “sh*t as if it’s information! What did I know about the actual science?
As I spoke of mechanisms he pulled out his phone and pulled up Baric’s profile and asked if I knew THAT man’s work, to which I said yes, i understood. I opened my bag with an inch thick file of science papers including Baric’s and the one referenced (above).
The doctor, leaned in and said in a firm whisper, with teeth clenched, “Well damn him! If ever there was a person that I’d shoot in the street on sight, it might be him!’
To that I asked if I could explain what I’d found as a route around the Baric bio trap and the doctor’s diagnostic confusion. He said, he’d like a copy of the papers I had.
But, he didn’t commit to discuss them with me because he said he can’t do anything, not even research despite making proposals to hospital research funding programs.
As I handed my copies to that ‘teaching’ doctor, in good faith, he waived them and said, the problem is that the hospital and public health administrators, were ready to open the shower doors for my loved one and anyone admitted to hospital that raises questions of his higher ups. Doctors would lose their licence to consider the biology or individual insights.
Indeed, hospital staff blocked me from submitting my POA or correcting their incorrect data for the patient. They kept her 6 weeks for a diagnoses requiring a 3-day stay. They did X-rays and brain scans every night in the middle of the night, for no credible reason until I could get a doctor and ask why 3 days in a row? There was no reason given. Nor could they explain the meds they added and mixed for the patient, meds they did not tell her or me about when we specifically asked.
When discharge occurred my loved one had worsened conditions and toxic dosing for prescriptions to take home. The Charge Nurse(?) bothered to include in the discharge package, another lead MD note that addressed me as a concerned family member who was asking bizarre conspiratorial questions and concerns about their prescriptions.
They wanted to silence me for asking. It’s ludicrous in the context of our biomedical reality run on DURC and biodefense ideals.
Of course, it’s our nation that took in the scientists from Nazi Germany. The biomedical orthodoxy outlives them in the name of what?…protecting the people?
News media aren’t allowed to discuss genocide, whether Gaza, Lebanon or threats against Iran.
But SARSCoV2? Should we ask Baric under IV truth serum, what makes SARS and Covid variants so deadly and how does he reverse that?
Then again, when we see this kind of deterministic audacity in targeting all life and genetic lineages, it’s beyond sickening. It’s a non-partisan political bonanza built around pandemic profiteering, threats, professional coercion and corruption.
But hey, pardon me for saying, the ultimate political act is recognizing and standing up for our humanity and right to life, regardless of the it Is-Real lobby,
Let’s stand up for ourselves and one another as people blessed with life of diverse race, sex, ethnicity, religion or nationality etc… in the name of peace, and a future for life as a species.
Who did Ralph Baric work for?
Sen. Rand Paul released emails from September 2015 between Baric and the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about a “possible project” on “coronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation.” Less than two months later, Baric published “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.” He didn’t publish the genetic code of the virus he engineered for that paper until May 2020. Could it be SARS-CoV-2?
Event 201 participant Avril Haines was at the CIA in 2015, deputy director under John Brennan. The Director of National Intelligence was James Clapper. The names of the CIA and ODNI officials Baric corresponded with are redacted. Could one be Avril Haines? Is she the Allen Dulles of the Plandemic?
Between her roles in Obama’s Central Intelligence Agency and as Biden’s Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines worked for WestExec, the Deep State firm that quickly populated Biden’s Cabinet in 2021. When she participated in Event 201, the Plandemic dress rehearsal that took place in October 2019, she was working, as a WestExec principal, for just about every organization involved.
Event 201 was organized by Johns Hopkins while Avril Haines was Senior Fellow at its Applied Physics Laboratory. The official role of an APL Senior Fellow is government lobbyist and influencer. According to the university, “APL’s Senior Fellows are distinguished experts in national security and space who work with technical experts at the Laboratory to better inform technology and policy decisions made by U.S. military leaders and senior government officials.”
Event 201 was cohosted by the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation while Avril Haines was working through WestExec for Microsoft.
Event 201 was funded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz’s Open Philanthropy, while it was another one of Haines’s WestExec clients.
WestExec clients of Avril Haines that weren’t (to my knowledge) involved in Event 201 include Peter Thiel’s data mining and surveillance company Palantir and Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime JPMorgan Chase, but they have their Plandemic ties, too.
Palantir got at least $9 million in government COVID contracts in 2021-2022, but the company says its COVID work began in April 2020.
As for JPMorgan Chase, long before the Plandemic, it helped companies prepare to profit from it. In 2011, Jeffrey Epstein brought Bill Gates together with JPMorgan Chase executives to create the Global Health Investment Fund. Now known as the Global Health Investment Corporation, it includes dozens of Plandemic profiteers. GHIC partners include GSK, Merck, the Pfizer Foundation, MITRE, and the public-private partnership BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) Ventures. The GHIC-BARDA agreement provides for BARDA (taxpayer) funding to GHIC of up to $500 million over 10 years.
Jeffrey Epstein worked closely with Nathan Wolfe of Metabiota, paid by Google.org to set up the Predict & Prevent consortium, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that collected the Chinese bat viruses Baric used in his infamous “gain-of-function” (bioweapons) work.
In 2010, Epstein coordinated a New York meeting between Nathan Wolfe and Prince Andrew.
In 2009, the Epstein-funded Edge Foundation brought Nathan Wolfe to SpaceX for a “Short Course on Synthetic Genomics” with “architects of the some of the leading transformative companies of our time (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, PayPal)” for a glimpse of a future where “life as we know it is transformed not by the error catastrophe of radiation damage to our genetic processes, but by the far greater upheaval caused by discovering how to read genetic sequences directly into computers, where the code can be replicated exactly, manipulated freely, and translated back into living organisms by writing the other way.”
Baric was a tool of the Deep State and the pharma and tech billionaires who use its $100B/year taxpayer-funded black budget to control/kill us with viruses and vaccines.