Cottingley fairies

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For the true explanation of these fairy photographs what is wanted is not a knowledge of occult phenomena but a knowledge of children.
Truth Magazine on the Cottingley fairies, 5th Janurary, 1921
The most iconic image in the series. If the Photoshop Disasters blog had been running in 1917, this would have won an award.

The Cottingley fairies was a hoax which demonstrates that being a famous novelist doesn't prevent you from being credulous. In short, Elsie Wright, a wacky art college student, persuaded her ten-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths, to pose with some cardboard cut-out fairies for a photo in 1917. Later photographs were taken using a double exposure technique to super-impose fairy like creatures onto photographs. Five photographs were taken in total.

[edit] Reaction

Word got out, and Arthur Conan Doyle, who also believed in spiritualism,[1] declared them genuine. He even wrote a book, The Coming of Fairies which explained the photographs in detail - what the fairies are doing, their rank in fairy society. Many other spiritualists and paranormal lovers of the day were also happy to indulge the girls (and themselves) that the photos were real, even the obviously faked ones.

[edit] The hoax revealed!

Doubts about the reality of the photographs were raised almost immediately, although many were still suckered in. The fate of the hoax seemed sealed when a book was discovered that featured line drawings of dancing girls with remarkable similarity to the fairies in the photos, but this still didn't dissuade the true believers. Over the years, the little fib and simple childish prank grew and grew until it was too embarrassing to admit the truth (in a manner reminiscent of the Fox sisters saga). Ever since, the photos have been held up as incontrovertible proof that there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden despite the cousins' admission in 1981 that they were faked.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Conan Doyle also insisted that Houdini had supernatural powers, despite Houdini's open insistence that he didn't. The creator of Sherlock Holmes was so credulous as to defy imagination.
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