In 1997, a man named Johan Hultin obtained permission to exhume a mass grave in Alaska’s Brevig Mission, seeking the preserved 1918 H1N1 influenza virus responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic. Hultin’s quest to retrieve the virus that had caused millions of deaths 46 years earlier led him back to the site despite the risk of contracting the deadly virus himself. He successfully collected samples that enabled scientists to determine the virus’s full genetic sequence. While the sequence provided insights into the virus’s evolution, it couldn’t explain its rapid spread and high mortality rate. Recreating the virus remained the only way to answer these questions.