Hungary is under siege by a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak—the first in over 50 years—forcing the slaughter of thousands of livestock and igniting fears that this could be no accident, but a deliberate “biological attack.“

The World Organisation for Animal Health reports that Austria and Slovakia have sealed dozens of border crossings with Hungary, desperate to shield their lands from the spreading plague. It all began on a cattle farm near Hungary’s northwest border, where the virus reared its ugly head.

A Hungarian spokesperson dropped a bombshell: the disease might have been “artificially engineered.” Yes, you read that right—they’re not ruling out foul play.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, doubled down, stating, “At this stage, we can say that it cannot be ruled out that the virus was not of natural origin, we may be dealing with an artificially engineered virus.”

Prime Minister Viktor Orban believes the viral outbreak closing European borders was likely “artificially engineered”

Who’s behind it? Gulyas stayed tight-lipped, leaving us to wonder what shadowy forces might be at work. His suspicions, he claimed, stem from “verbal information” from a foreign lab.

Hungarian animal authorities have scoured nearly 1,000 farms, with four testing positive for the disease. The nation’s cattle stock—861,000 strong last December, a modest 1.2% of the EU’s total—is now being culled by the thousands as officials race to contain this nightmare, per The Express. Foot-and-mouth doesn’t harm humans, but it’s a brutal beast for livestock, causing fever and blistering agony in cattle, sheep, and goats.

The human toll is just as devastating. Paul Meixner, an Austrian-Hungarian farmer whose land was hit hard, watched his life’s work crumble, suffering a staggering 1.5 billion forint ($4.09 million) loss after culling 3,000 cattle and other animals, according to The Independent. “Everyone was just standing there, crying and saying that this cannot be true, that this was impossible,” he said, his voice heavy with grief. Yet, Meixner’s fighting back, vowing to rebuild: “In two weeks, we will start harvesting and storing the hay. We need the fodder for next year.”

Meanwhile, shocking images reveal the chaos at the borders. Disinfection stations have sprung up like battle lines, with officials in hazmat suits swarming trucks, testing cargo with grim determination. Cars crawl through makeshift decontamination zones, sprayed down in a bid to choke the virus’s spread. It’s a scene straight out of a dystopian playbook—hazmat gear, sealed borders, and a nation under invisible attack.

So, what’s really going on? A freak outbreak, or something cooked up in a lab to destabilize Orban’s Hungary?