Forteana

Something was wrong with the squirrels of Appalachia. It was the fall of 1968, and they appeared to be making a sudden pilgrimage: attempting improbable swims across lakes, sprinting over highways and bursting into buildings. One squirrel, while fleeing, climbed into a critical piece of infrastructure and reportedly short-circuited power to much of Clarkesville, Georgia. “The squirrel,” the wire services reported, “was also extinguished.” The highways were lined with hundreds of dead squirrels. One scientist spotted 13 squirrels swimming due north across the reservoirs of North Carolina. Nothing could make them turn around. Assuming the squirrels must be starving, concerned citizens began sending boxes of acorns and hickory nuts to the afflicted areas, and grocery stores put up signs encouraging shoppers to feed the squirrels.

The problem was that the squirrels were, by and large, well-fed. There was no shortage of food. Yet by some estimates, 20 million squirrels were on the move. Wildlife officials were flummoxed. So they notified the Smithsonian Center for Short-Lived Phenomena.

The CSLP was a kind of clearinghouse for news of intriguing phenomena that scientists might want to study as they occurred—from volcanic eruptions to oil spills, meteorite strikes, sudden islands, unusual migrations and explosions in the populations of non-native species. Every day, an odd phenomenon occurred somewhere, offering a priceless natural experiment. But researchers worried they were missing most of them.

“For years, scientists have been aware of the almost total lack of the essential research information on the very earliest beginnings of natural events,” Sidney Galler, then assistant secretary for science at the Smithsonian Institution, told Newsweek about how the idea for the CSLP had come about. “We come in the middle and have to go back and attempt to reconstruct what actually happened.”

But now the Smithsonian had built an unprecedented network to help scientists get fast, accurate information about developing situations. “We have our finger,” said Robert Citron, the director of the center, “on the pulse of planet Earth.”

In its seven years of existence, the CSLP logged oil spills and ashened snowfalls, chased still-warm meteorites, laid the foundation of an essential global database of volcanic activity, and heralded the (erroneous) discovery of at least one prehistoric sea monster. And it left, in the archives of the Smithsonian, a rather large paper trail. Decades later, those archives are a window into a moment of epistemological uncertainty at the dawn of the environmental age, when nothing quite seemed to make sense anymore and concerned researchers were starting to piece it all together, one strange event at a time.

Wikipedia

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/35349474

An underwater camera set up 55 years ago to try and photograph the Loch Ness Monster has been found by accident by a robot submarine.

The ocean-going yellow sub - called Boaty McBoatface - was being put through trials when its propeller snagged the mooring for the 1970s camera system.

It is believed it was lowered 180m (591ft) below the loch's surface by the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, a group set up in the 1960s to uncover the existence of Nessie in the waters.

No footage of Nessie has been found on the camera, but one of the submarine's engineers was able to develop a few images of the loch's murky waters.

Declassified CIA documents claim that the mystical Ark of the Covenant was located by a psychic decades ago in the Middle East as part of one of the intelligence agency’s experimental, secret projects in the 1980s.

...

The CIA conducted experiments as part of the secret Project Sun Streak with individuals known as “remote viewers”, a type of clairvoyant, who claimed they could project their consciousness to receive information about faraway objects.

There is no credible scientific evidence that remote viewing exists, and it is generally regarded as pseudoscience.

In a remote viewing session on 5 December, 1988, remote “viewer #32” was tasked with identifying the coveted Ark, according to CIA documents recently circulating on social media. The documents were first declassified in August 2000. They allegedly did not know the object they were being tasked to find.

The psychic described a location in the Middle East that they claimed housed the object and said it was being “protected by entities”, says the CIA document.

“Target is a container. This container has another container inside of it. The target is fashioned of wood, gold, and silver,” they said, allegedly not knowing they were trying to find the Ark. “Similar in shape to a coffin and is decorated with seraphim.”

The declassified document shows several pages of drawings depicting one of the four seraphim standing out on the corners of the Ark, along with a drawing of mummies lined up on a wall.

“Visuals of surrounding buildings indicated the presence of mosque domes,” they added.

They said the object was hidden underground in dark, wet conditions.

“There is an aspect of spirituality, information, lessons and the historical knowledge far beyond what we now know,” remote viewer #32 continued.

They described the Ark as being protected by entities that would destroy individuals who attempted to damage the object.

“The target is protected by entities and can only be opened by those who are authorised to do so – this container will not/cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct,” the remote viewer continued.

“Individuals opening the container by prying or striking are destroyed by the container’s protectors through the use of a power unknown to us.”

...

Joe McMoneagle, a US Army chief warrant officer and the first person to do remote viewing for the CIA, told The New York Post that they allegedly do not know what was scrawled down and are guided through the process by another person.

However, Mr McMoneagle does not believe that this remote viewing case is worth the paper it is written on, claiming the session is “bogus”.

“If someone claims that remote viewing proves the existence of something, such as the Ark of the Covenant, they must produce the Ark to substantiate their claim,” he added.

Claims that researchers discovered previously unknown structures beneath the Pyramid of Khafre — the pyramid situated in the center of the Great Pyramids of Giza — using radar technology circulated online in March 2025.

The purported discovery was that of "five identical structures near the Khafre Pyramid's base, linked by pathways, and eight deep vertical wells descending 648 meters underground."

Users took to social media to express their excitement over the alleged findings, posting on social media platforms like X (archived), Instagram (archived) and TikTok (archived). Some referred to the discovery as "a vast underground city." One YouTube video sharing the claim stood at over 35,000 views as of this writing.

Despite the popularity of the claim, there is no evidence to support it. In addition, no credible news outlets or scientific publications have reported on this rumor.

...

The researchers named in the recent claims, Corrado Malanga and Filippo Biondi, did publish a paper and book about their work using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to explore the Giza pyramid in 2022.

According to NASA, SAR is "a type of active data collection where an instrument sends out a pulse of energy and then records the amount of that energy reflected back after it interacts with Earth."

However, it does not appear that this research has been peer-reviewed or corroborated by credible archaeologists. Additionally, the research alludes to fringe theories about ancient civilizations and otherworldly intentions for the structures, which aligns with Malanga's well-documented interest in UFO and alien abduction research as well as Dunn's "power plant" theory.

Something lurks in the shadows of our rural . Similar incidents play out in farms, stables, rural estates, golf courses, utility holdings, landfill sites and even nature reserves across the country. Large cats, mainly resembling black leopards (also known as panthers), but also sometimes mountain lions, and, very occasionally, lynx, are reported across such locations.

I became immersed in the possibility of big cats being present in Britain 24 years ago, after seeing what I’m convinced was a black leopard in Cumbria. It was walking side-on to me across rough pasture, about 70m away. I assumed it was a labrador, but then noticed no collar and no owners in sight. Its purposeful strides, low and long-bodied form, tubular tail and fluid movement were completely unlike a dog.

The suspected sightings are far and wide across the country. In Essex, a fisherman was hissed at by a black leopard (he noticed its rosettes) at 5am as he disturbed it cornering a muntjac deer. In Somerset, a dog walker watched a black leopard take down a roe deer in the adjacent field – she located the dragged and neatly eaten carcass three days later, when she felt safe to return. In Dorset, a woman watched a black leopard effortlessly descend a tree after targeting a squirrel’s drey 12m up.

Snippets of footage from the last two events are on the Big Cat Conversations website, but otherwise footage is rare, or just a pixelated blur.

...

We must also look at the scientific evidence. Positive DNA results proving the presence of big cats in Britain are limited, yet do exist. There are six publicly known positive DNA results that match the leopard (Panthera pardus), two from recent years: from Gloucestershire in 2022, from a hair snagged on a barbed-wire fence in the vicinity of a sheep kill; and from Cumbria in 2023, when DNA was found on a carcass – again, of a sheep.We must also look at the scientific evidence. Positive DNA results proving the presence of big cats in Britain are limited, yet do exist. There are six publicly known positive DNA results that match the leopard (Panthera pardus), two from recent years: from Gloucestershire in 2022, from a hair snagged on a barbed-wire fence in the vicinity of a sheep kill; and from Cumbria in 2023, when DNA was found on a carcass – again, of a sheep.

A photograph of an animal at the edge of a field in Bausley Hill, near Crew Green, sparked speculation that a “panther” or “big cat” was prowling around the countryside.

The animal was spotted by resident Bethany Jones, who said she was “shocked” to see the animal in the private field and was only able to take a photo before the animal disappeared again.

She said: “I walked into our living room and saw whatever it was running along the bottom of the field.

“At first I thought it was a dog because of its size, which was worrying on its own because we knew that field had a lot of sheep in it at the time, but as I got a closer look it seemed to move more like a cat.

“But I could also see that it was obviously large as cats go, so much that I couldn’t believe it was a domestic cat as I was looking at it from across the field.

“I only managed to catch a hurried photo of it before it jumped over the fence and disappeared, but I remember being completely shocked at how large it was.

...

“We went out afterwards and found a footprint, which was first spotted by my daughter, so we took a photo of that as well.

"I showed it to a nearby farmer who is a friend of ours, and they said it looked too big to have been made by an average house cat.”

Thousands of children in England have been accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.

Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft.

The statistics, compiled by the National FGM Centre, come as the film Kindoki Witch Boy is released, telling the story of Mardoche Yembi, 33, who was accused of witchcraft as a child growing up in north London and subjected to an exorcism. Its release date also marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl who was tortured after accusations of witchcraft were levelled against her.

Yembi hopes that the new film will encourage more of these children who are suffering behind closed doors to come forward.

...

Kindoki is one of several words used to describe the kind of witchcraft Yembi and Victoria were accused of along with terms sucha as djin, juju and voodoo.

...

Yembi and Victoria were born just weeks apart and lived a few miles from each other in north London. Yembi was sent to the UK at the age of eight by his father from his home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after his mother died, to be looked after by relatives.

Like many other children facing witchcraft accusations, Yembi was scapegoated for causing health and financial misfortunes in his relatives’ lives. Social services became concerned about him because his extended family said they wanted to send him back to DRC for an exorcism.

Unlike Victoria, he did not experience physical abuse, but social services placed him with a foster mother who supported him for the next decade. He thrived in her care and now works to support young care leavers.

Bald men in Mozambique could be targets of ritual attacks, police have warned, after the recent killing of five men for their body parts.

Two suspects have been arrested in the central district of Milange, where the killings occurred.

"The belief is that the head of a bald man contains gold," said Afonso Dias, a police commander in Mozambique's central Zambezia province.

Albino people have also been killed in the region for ritual purposes.

...

The BBC's Jose Tembe in the capital, Maputo, says police think the notion of a bald head containing gold is a ruse by witchdoctors to get clients to take a person's head to them.

"Their motive comes from superstition and culture - the local community thinks bald individuals are rich," Commander Dias is reported as having told a press conference in Maputo.

...

A regional security spokesman, Miguel Caetano, told AFP that one of the victims had his head cut off and his organs removed.

The organs were to be used in rituals to advance the wealth of clients in Tanzania and Malawi, Mr Caetano said, citing the suspects.

There has been a spate of killings of people with albinism in East Africa in recent years, with their body parts used to make charms and potions by witchdoctors.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25224471

KANO  -  Five men have been sentenced to death by hanging in Nigeria’s Kano state for the 2023 murder of a woman they accused of witchcraft. The convicted men attacked Dahare Abubakar, 67, as she was working on her farm, beating and stabbing her to death. 

The court heard that the victim was murdered after the sick wife of one of the accused, Abdulaziz Yahaya, had a dream that she was being pursued by Ms Abubakar, who was holding a knife.

Yahaya then organised a group to confront Ms Abubakar, which resulted in her murder.

"There have been similar cases like this but this is the first time we are seeing up to five people sentenced to death for murder over wrongful witchcraft accusation," Mr Sorondiki told the BBC.

A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood could face trial after a DNA test indicated the blood was hers.

Gisella Cardia, who also claimed that the statue was transmitting messages to her, was last year declared a fraud by the Roman Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena.

Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened their own fraud investigation into Cardia in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue, which at the time was placed in a glass case on a hill in Trevignano Romano, a town overlooking Lake Bracciano, near Rome, had come from a pig.

...

Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchignoli, suggested that the presence of Cardia’s DNA did not rule out a supernatural phenomena.

“The DNA stain warrants further investigation,” Marchignoli told Corriere. “We are waiting to find out whether it’s a mixed or single profile.” She argued that while it was obvious there would be traces of Cardia’s DNA because she had “kissed and handled the statue”, it could have been mixed up with others, possibly even that of the Virgin Mary. “Who can say? Do you know the Madonna’s DNA?”

...

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary and weeping statues have been part of Catholicism since time immemorial, but since last May only the pope has the final word on what constitutes a supernatural event. Before then, self-styled prophets and local bishops had the power to endorse such an occurrence.

The truth is out there and Canadians think they should know about it — but they don't want to pay for research into reports of strange objects spotted in the night sky.

Canada's chief science adviser hired a third-party consulting firm to poll Canadians on how they feel about UFOs, now broadly referred to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

The survey says the public wants the federal government to proactively release any documents it has on unidentified sightings in the night sky, but there's little desire to fund investigations.

About half of Canadians think the government needs to do something about reports of UAP sightings and a third said it's "very important" for the government to make information on reported sightings available to the public.

But only one in 10 feel it's urgent for the government to shell out funds to investigate those reports.

...

Interest in UAPs got a big boost in early 2023, when a Chinese spy balloon travelled across Alaska and Western Canada before U.S. forces shot it down off the coast of California.

...

Just 10 per cent believe it could be aliens or extraterrestrial life — twice as many as those who point to natural causes like weather.

More than a quarter said they have seen an unidentified object in the sky in their lifetime, but only one in 10 reported the event.

All eyes are on the Red Planet once again after a bizarre ‘square structure’ on the Martian surface caused a cosmic commotion online.

SpaceX mogul Elon Musk fuelled the frenzy by posting on X (formerly Twitter), “We should send astronauts to Mars to investigate,” while infamous podcaster Joe Rogan also joined in the speculation. Is this finally the evidence we’ve all been waiting for…?

A newly resurfaced NASA Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera snap shows a rugged region around 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) wide. In the image, there’s a suggestively square(ish) feature that’s sparked heated chatter on social media and Reddit. Some swear it’s the remnants of an ancient Martian civilisation, claiming that ‘nature never makes neat squares’. But hold on to your space helmets – experts say the image has been edited to emphasise the shape, and even in the raw photo you’d have to squint to see anything distinctly rectangular.

...

So why do we see squares, faces, or even Elvis in our toast? Blame pareidolia – our evolved tendency to spot meaningful patterns (like a lurking lion!) in random visuals. Carl Sagan famously noted that our ancestors who ran from anything resembling a predator were more likely to survive. So if you’re primed to pick out potential perils, it’s natural you might see squares on Mars – or canals, or pyramids, or the occasional ‘avocado rock’.

A man’s ongoing efforts to track down the elusive sasquatch in remote areas of British Columbia suggest he’s capable of working, and therefore not entitled to spousal support, a judge has ruled.

The unusual circumstances were detailed in a recent divorce decision handed down in B.C. Supreme Court, which makes multiple references to the 57-year-old’s sasquatch-seeking expeditions.

It was one such venture that led to the couple’s separation in August 2020.

His wife told the court he went on a camping trip on Vancouver Island that month in search of the mythical ape-like creature – and brought along an ex-girlfriend without telling her.

“The respondent was extremely upset by this,” Justice Robin Baird wrote, in his Jan. 17 decision.

“Before the claimant returned home she fired off a text to him declaring that their marriage was over, and she never changed her mind.”

The husband’s claim for spousal support also hinged on him being unable to work due to a mishap that occurred during a previous sasquatch outing years earlier.

...

But Baird was ultimately not convinced the husband was left “totally disabled” by the accident, or that he “cannot earn income from employment of some kind or other” – partly because of his ongoing sasquatch-related endeavours.

“The claimant continues to enjoy camping, fishing, hunting, riding ‘quad’ motorcycles, and exploring remote areas of B.C. in search of sasquatch,” the judge wrote.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday he believes aliens have underwater bases on Earth.

“I just think travelin’ light years, I think it happens. I think it’s possible in the vastness of God’s great universe. I mean, light years, you know, the light from those stars that we see at night left there before the time of Christ,” Burchett said, joining former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) One America News show, in a clip highlighted by Mediaite

In April, Burchett implied in the wake of a classified briefing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) that the government is purposefully concealing information on them from the American public.

“I think there’s a cover-up,” Burchett said at the time.

“There are tens of millions of dollars that we’ve spent investigating these things. We’ve had departments tell us that they have recovery units, but they won’t release full reports. Everything’s covered up,” Burchett added.

...

In 2023, Burchett also headed up an effort to start a UAP caucus in the House, and he is a part of a group of lawmakers from both parties that have consistently pushed for greater transparency from officials in the military on government knowledge on UAP.

A podcast promoting claims that non-verbal autistic children can read minds briefly knocked Joe Rogan off the top of the charts this month, which made the Science Weekly team wonder, how has science attempted to prove or disprove the existence of mind reading? To find out, Ian Sample speaks to Chris French, emeritus professor of psychology at Goldsmiths University. They discuss how scientists have tested this phenomenon, what else could be behind the apparent ability of some people to read minds, and why the idea is still so popular

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22865952

A thatcher has shared his most "unusual" find made while working on a roof - a pair of shoes believed to date back two centuries.

Chris Fellows, who lives in Thame, Oxfordshire and runs Thame Thatch, has found many other items such as tools from old craftsmen and newspapers during his career.

He said shoes were believed to have been placed in the thatch in the early 19th Century to ward off evil spirits.

Mr Fellows called the curious discovery a "good find" and said they had since been put back in the new thatch.

...

His subsequent research into shoes found they dated from around the beginning of the 19th Century.

"It was a time when superstition was rife - they were put in there to ward off evil spirits and witches.

"Apparently, the shoe, because it's so close to the foot, would always contain a little bit of your soul in it - so they would stick them in the roof.

"And a lot of the roofs we work on have white window sills, because witches wouldn't cross a white doorstep."

Mr Fellows said he had found the shoes "quite close to Halloween".

"Me and the guy I was working with took the rest of the day off, just in case."

Reported sightings of a panther or puma in Wiltshire in the last few months could well be genuine, according to a big cat expert.

Gloucestershire-based Rick Minter, host of the Big Cat Conversations podcast, believes a reported sighting near Melksham could well be a black leopard indigenous to the Malay Peninsula.

Speaking to BBC Wiltshire, Mr Minter said people frequently described seeing a cat with a thick, tube-like tail, a boxy head and, long, muscular body slightly larger than a labrador.

Mr Minter, whose podcast examines sightings of big cats around the UK, thinks the UK may have a well-established population of leopards breeding in the wild.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22566785

For a brief moment this week, lynx have been roaming the Scottish Highlands once again. But this was not the way conservationists had hoped to end their 1,000-year absence.

On Wednesday, Police Scotland received reports of two lynx in a forest in the Cairngorms national park, sparking a frantic search. That episode ended in less than a day. Both animals were quickly captured by experts from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and taken to quarantine facilities at Highland wildlife park.

Yet their delight at a successful operation was short-lived. Early on Friday morning, the RZSS’s network of wildlife cameras caught two more lynx in the same stretch of forest, near Kingussie. The baited traps were redeployed and its specialists went hunting again, before the additional lynx were safely captured at about 6.30pm.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22483688

There is fury tonight, even from conservationists, about the confirmed release of controversial lynx onto land near Insh Marshes by Kingussie.

A Police Scotland spokesperson told the Strathy this evening: “Around 4.20pm on Wednesday, 8 January 2025, police were advised that two lynx had been spotted in the Drumguish area near to Kingussie.

“As a precaution, and also for the animals' safety, specially trained staff from Highland Wildlife Park are assisting officers to trace them.

“Members of the public are asked not to approach the lynx nor indeed attend the area, but instead to contact police via 101 if they are spotted.

Two Oregon men were found dead in a Washington state forest after they failed to return from a trip to look for Sasquatch, authorities said Saturday.

The 59-year-old and 37-year-old appear to have died from exposure, the Skamania County Sheriff's Office said via Facebook. The weather and the men's lack of preparedness led the office to draw that conclusion, it said.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21820950

When we think about Christmas, we probably picture mangers, glowing fireplaces, carol singers and snow-covered hills. But behind all this, there’s something much darker lurking in the shadows.

In her new book, The Dead of Winter, Sarah Clegg peels back the wrapping paper of modern Christmas to reveal the creepy creatures and customs hiding underneath. Beyond the jollity and bright enchantment of the festive season, there lurks a darker mood - one that has found expression over the centuries in a host of strange and unsettling traditions.

Cambridge-trained historian Sarah delves deep into the folklore of the Christmas season in Europe, detailing the way its terrifying past continues to haunt and entertain us now in the 21st Century. She experiences many of these traditions first-hand joining wassailing celebrations in Wales and attempting a Swedish Year Walk. She also explores the tension between darkness and light that lies at the heart of winter celebrations and argues that we need both the comforting glow of the hearth and the thrilling chill of ghost stories.

Today, Sarah introduces us to some of the ghastly and ghoulish creatures from ancient European Christmas folklore.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21798396

Horror fan Reece Shearsmith joins Danny to discuss some brand-new listener cases, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall at UncannyCon.

While NASA is searching for life on Mars, a CIA document claims it was found 40 years ago.

The report, 'Mars Exploration May 22, 1984,' details how the agency used astral projection—the idea that a person's spirit can travel through the astral plane—to transport a 'subject' to Mars approximately one million years BC.

The study was part of Project Stargate, a secret US Army unit established in 1977 that focused on anomalous phenomena, including remote viewing, telepathy, and psychokinesis.

Participants were exposed to sounds like binaural beats and hemi-sync audio to induce altered states of consciousness and promote psychic abilities.

The experiment's 'subject' was transported to the planet during the specified year, reporting an 'oblique view of a pyramid' and a 'very large road' with a monument similar to those known among ancient Egyptians on Earth, the report claims.

The vision then shifted to a population of 'very large people' searching for 'a new place to live because their environment was corrupted.'

Project Stargate was the US government's new weapon against the Soviet Union, aimed at creating mind-reading spies who could infiltrate the minds of its enemies.

The classified project was conducted at Fort Meade in Maryland, recruiting men and women who claimed to have extrasensory perception (ESP) to help uncover military and domestic intelligence secrets.

It shut down in 1995, but during its more than 10-year existence, psychics known as 'remote viewers' participated in a wide array of operations, from locating hostages kidnapped by Islamic terrorist groups to tracing the paths of fugitive criminals within the US.

Archive

Mars Exploration May 22, 1984 at CIA.gov

See also: Crazy Rulers of the World/The Men Who Stare at Goats

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21676450

Christmas 1973, and two young climbers experienced the most terrifying night of their lives in a bothy in the Scottish mountains. The events that took place that night would haunt one of those young men, Phil, for the rest of his life.

In 2021, Phil told Danny Robins his story, and it became one of the most popular episodes of Uncanny to date. Now, for this special Christmas episode and five decades on from Phil’s original experience, Danny is strapping on his rucksack and heading for the Highlands, to take Phil back to where it all happened.

Is whatever haunted Luibeilt still there? Will Danny survive the night?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21668985

Two men have been arrested in Zambia accused of being "witchdoctors" who had been tasked with trying to bewitch the president.

The police said they had arrested Jasten Mabulesse Candunde and Leonard Phiri in the capital, Lusaka.

"Their purported mission was to use charms to harm" President Hakainde Hichilema, said the police statement, released on Friday.

...

The police said Mr Candunde and Mr Phiri were hired by Nelson Banda, the younger brother of MP Emmanuel "Jay Jay" Banda.

The MP was reportedly arrested last month in neighbouring Zimbabwe over robbery charges, which he denies, but he has not been seen in public.

He is also accused of having escaped from custody in August as he awaited to appear in court.

...

Mr Candunde and Mr Phiri have been charged under Zambia's Witchcraft Act with "possession of charms", "professing knowledge of witchcraft" and "cruelty to wild animals".

The pair were found in possession of "assorted charms", including a live chameleon, the police added.

They told the police they had been promised more than 2m Zambian kwacha (£58,000; $73,000) for their "mission", according to the police statement.