Diesel Oil Spewing From Rock in Zimbabwe?

(Harare, Zimbabwe) A 35-year-old faith healer and spirit medium, Rotina Mavhunga aka Sekuru Muboni, claimed to have found pure diesel coming from a hole in a rock in a "sacred" place near limestone formations known as Chinhoyi Caves. Reportedly, a local newspaper printed a picture of Muboni holding a hose stuck into the rock "spewing oil." I haven't seen the picture but it's obvious that something was being spewed.

In a country desperate to find energy sources to fuel a failing economy, Zimbabwean government officials and members of the police and air force were dispatched to confirm Muboni's claim. First, though, faith healer Muboni told the officials to perform a ritual.

After taking their shoes off, they sat with legs stretched, clapped their hands and asked the ancestral spirits for permission. Meanwhile, Muboni drenched the officials with diesel oil to "prove that the precious liquid was available in the area."

[Then] Muboni led the party to Raffingora, Musindizi, the snake-infested Nyamugomba and vicious baboon-infested Nyakasikana. Muboni said these were sacred areas she went to while being led where the "diesel" was.

"We would hold biras (traditional beer ceremonies) here until the ancestors showed us where the "diesel" was.

"Nyamugomba and Nyakasikana are sources of the Sleeping Pool at the Chinhoyi Caves and look alike. Most important is that they are sacred places.

"You will never be seen again if you fall into these two pools, which hold a lot of history," she added.

As darkness fell, Muboni led her party to Nyakasikana where she held another ritual.

To make a long story shorter, government officials were unable to confirm that a rock was spewing diesel oil. Government spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira told the media that there were "no deposits of diesel in the area."

Now, faith healer/spirit medium Mavhunga aka Muboni is on the lam and 50 of her followers have been arrested. It's not clear what charges will be filed against Mavhunga/Muboni and her followers.

It should be noted that Muboni's claim of oil coming from a rock is not far-fetched if one considers that Colonel Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, because that was where oil was seeping from a rock.

There is, however, a significant difference between the crude oil Drake saw coming from a rock and the refined diesel oil Muboni claimed she saw coming from a rock. That difference should have been apparent to government officials.

It wasn't.