How to explain humans growing wings as a mutation from contact with an unknown object?

Question

Background history

Year 2150, humanity is expecting the most devastating winter of all times and they know it 6 months before it happens. Every scientist of every country are trying to develop a solution so that their country can survive, but nothing seems to work. It seems inevitable that the humanity will fall.

Suddenly, somewhere far away in Russia, a scientist discovered an object, some kind of luminous rock, underneath the earth of his farm. Without losing any time, he started studying this strange object and found out that this object when in contact with human blood had some weird effects.

Since the world was coming to an end, most of the countries of the world had already liberated experiments on humans, which were all volunteers because there was no hope left and they had nothing to lose.

This russian scientist started the experiments on adults but most of them were failures, leading to death or deformities and that made him realize that he needed to test on younger subjects. After lots of experiments and tests, he found out how to make the body of the younger subjects to become much more resistant to cold. Eureka! - He thought. Finally there was hope for humanity.

But, after some months, the first subjects started to grow mutations of all kinds, from being able to jump much higher than a normal human would to being able to run so fast that one could cross a pool just by running on top of it.

Actual question

So, I wanted some of the subjects to grow wings after a while, which would grow bigger as they age.

Could this be possible? Why would they grow wings? Does this seems coherent to my history?

Answer 1

The rock is not just a magic rock, but an artifact from an ancient or alien civilization that contains a gene therapy retrovirus

Some time in the distant past, an alien ship crash landed on Earth. Onboard was an artifact that contained a specialized retrovirus.

The retrovirus was designed to insert genes into the alien bodies to allow them to adapt to a wide variety of environments. It was contained in a crystalline housing that preserves the virus and allows its manipulation when the appropriate systems are connected.

When the Russian scientist discovered the rock, he unwittingly unleashed the retrovirus. The virus was designed for biology of the aliens, so for the first few experiments it had disastrous results. But the virus itself was designed to mutate and improve based on its failures, and so by the time the scientist experimented on young people, the virus had "learned" how to properly manipulate human biology.

As for why the wings, perhaps the original aliens were avian in nature, and it is just a simple side effect leftover from their genetic code being included in the virus.

Or another possibility is that since feathers are highly insulating, the wings serve as a built in "blanket" that the modified human can use to wrap around him/herself, providing extra protection from the cold.

Answer 2

God has got bored with humanity and wants to introduce a new set to play with. As for wings, maybe he isn't satisfied with the number of angels worshipping him and wants more recruits.