Comment by pie_flavor

The tokens are a number in a hash-map of user to balance in the weth program. Any eth program ("smart contract") can be a user. All the smart contract that owns the tokens has to do is tell the weth smart contract to transfer them, or approve mister redditor to transfer them on the contract's behalf. But that contract wasn't built to do such a thing. And now that it's published, it also can't be updated to do such a thing. A new contract could be uploaded, but that new contract won't be the same user. So they're just gone for good. Hope that cleared things up.