A reflection on the relationship between science, politics, and the media, beginning in February 2003, when Hong Kong became the starting point of the first major epidemic of the 21st century: SARS. In undertaking their research into the nature of this virus, three scientists follow the theory that bats could be its natural hosts, thus anticipating the hypothesis that COVID-19 could also have originated in a cave in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The outbreak of this latest pandemic placed Linfa Wang, Zhengli Shi, and Peter Daszak at the center of an unprecedented heated media debate. Alongside them was the fourth protagonist: the mammal best known in Western culture as a harbinger of dark omens, despite having been on Earth for over fifty million years.