During the recent Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa (2013-2016), community resistance contributed to the startling speed and persistence of the epidemic. Distrust of health workers – sometimes resulting in aggressive attacks on those trying to help – presented a great challenge to the Ebola eradication initiative. Why did numerous local communities so strongly resist the efforts by public health authorities and epidemic response agencies to control the epidemic and why was this resistance to such an extent directed against the foreign personnel on these teams? This paper draws on anthropological fieldwork in the administrative area of N'Zérékoré, commonly called Guinée Forestière. It was in this region where the first EVD cases surfaced and then spread to the rest of Guinea and across the borders to neighboring countries. The paper argues that a key contributor to the resistance of afflicted communities in Guinea was the widespread distribution of conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa. In addition, many of the afflicted communities interpreted the virus not as a disease but as the result of malevolent sorcery. These factors together created the strong resistance against the ebola response teams. The paper thus argues that the spread of the virus was partly the result of a notorious communication failure between the response teams and the communities, in turn explaining why local communities put themselves and the teams at risk.