Do You Believe in Fairies?

In 1917 in Cottingley, West Yorkshire two children took photographs of fairies, the images they took were to fool experts, believers , and baffle sceptics for 64 years.

During the time of the first World War, sixteen year old Elsie Wright borrowed her fathers camera and returned to the house later with two photographs that clearly pictured her cousin Frances photographed with fairies and herself seen with a Gnome like entity. On seeing the photographic plates developed , Elsies father Arthur who was very familiar with photographic techniques  ( he was in fact one of the first qualified electrical engineers) pronounced the pictures fakes and refused to let the girls use his camera again.                                                                     

   Pictures courtesy of Cottingley Connect.

In 1919 Elsies mother who had always been a firm believer in the authenticity of the  girls pictures attended a meeting of the Theosophical Society who’s discussion for that evening was fairies, after mentioning the photographs to the person sitting next to her Polly Wright was persuaded to forward the negatives to a Mr Edward Gardener a leading Theosophist, Gardner had the photographs examined by leading experts of the time who could find no hint of a fake with the photographs and the amazing pictures soon came to the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes stories.