New Zimbabwe reports that two witches who crash-landed in a suburb of Harare — after flying around in their winnowing baskets, which is the preferred method of transportation of Zimbabwe witches — were not actually witches. It was all an "elaborate hoax." As part of their witch disguise, one of the women had an owl with her — apparently having an owl is a sure sign of being a witch in Zimbabwe — but this owl had been bought "from a man who captured it in a grinding mill building."
The witch hoax was dreamed up by several "self-styled prophets" who talked the women into playing the part. The idea was that the prophets, having shown that they could bring witches out of the sky, would appear powerful and would attract more customers.
The women got the bad end of the deal because they were hauled off to prison. The brother of one of the women said, "What [she] did is embarrassing. She does a lot of other embarrassing things including pretending to be a witch because of the love of money.”
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