You may have heard of the story of the Cottingley Fairies, which took place in the village of Cottingley, near Bradford, England, in 1917. Two little girls, cousins Elsie Wright, 16, and Frances Griffiths, 9, were playing outside near a brook. Frances was visiting her older cousin and they spent a lot of time together. Nothing unusual about that โ except perhaps that the children were talking about fairies they had met and played with by the brook. Children with vivid imaginations often live in more than one world, and no one thought this unusual. No one believed the girls' story, but Mr Wright lent the cousins his camera. That got the ball rolling, and it started an avalanche. But first the girls brought home photographs of winged creatures. Beautiful miniature women who looked very fragile and elfin, and who were undoubtedly something like fairies or elves. Naturally, the pictures caused a minor sensation and were discussed among family and friends, but nothing happened for a while. In fact, the pictures were forgotten for three years โ until they came to the attention of the theosophist Edward Gardner, who sent them to a photographer for examination. And this expert, Harold Snelling, declared the photographs to be genuine. In his opinion, the photographic plates had only been exposed once, so double exposure was out of the question. The fairies, he said, were not made of a flat material like cloth or paper โ and they could not have been drawn on the plate. But the most puzzling thing was that the little creatures were moving when they were photographed. Snelling's testimony had already caused a sensation โ and attracted the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The self-confessed spiritualist was impressed and took the photos to a Kodak expert.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the story of the Cottingley Fairies
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You may have heard of the story of the #Cottingley #Fairies, which took place in 1917. Two cousins told of fairies they had met and played with by a brook.
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