6 replies to this topic

[Willow]

In 1917 two innocent-seeming English schoolgirls, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths, launched a deception that somehow managed to fool many people over the following years, including the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While playing in Cottingley Glen, just behind the Wright home, the girls took what they claimed were close-up photographs of winged fairies dancing amid the foliage. The girls then took each other's picture with the wee creatures, and photo experts who were consulted said that the images were not double exposures nor had the negatives been altered. The simple fact is that the girls had just posed with very obvious cutouts of fairy drawings to make the "authentic" pictures.

Some sixty years later, the aging Elsie and Frances confessed to what had begun as a prank but soon got out of hand as the story was publicized. Paramount Pictures revived the case with the magical release Fairy Tale: A True Story. Unfortunately, the film failed to provide modern audiences with many of the incriminating details that are now known of the Cottingley hoax.

Cottingley Fairies via James Randi
Another Site About Them

This is the most famous fairy related story *I think* its always what comes to mind when I read/hear about them.

[Oniix]

Agreed. It always come to the forefront when I consider these little spritely winged... thingers.

But, it's also the same as ghosts... right? There are ghost hoaxes.. a dime a dozen, in terms of photos and video.

Many would say both AmityVille and Summerwind-Carver Effect were both hoaxes.

So as much as I immediately think of the hoax, I guess it's not the end all to the debate.

And certainly wasn't saying your post was a debate..... mmmmmmm or was it!!? *suspenseful prairedog music inserted here*

[Willow]

Me? Debate...never


It just really always suprises me that people*even after its been proven a hoax* will go all out to prove little things as truth. The women admitted it to be a hoax, saying these pics and their noterity is what got out of hand and made it a "real" incident. Just more proof that the media can be truly evil.

As with ghosts, I hope things like this dont deter believers

[Oniix]

No, I don't think there's a need to be concerned in ragards to ghosts. There are enough anecdotal reports that don't exactly fit the hoax mold, at least in my mind. Faeries seem to be more elusive, even more so that Bigfoot.

Faeries however, I have very, very limited knowledge of and I've spent a great deal of time outdoors in the woods and wilderness without so much as a hint of such creatures.

You would think ,that there would be a ton of evidence if such creatures exist, though some arguments would place them upon a similar plane as ghosts.

[beck1959]

HI Everybody.
I am a yorkshireman and as kids i lived near the ladys and as kids mum would take us to the area of where the girls played, an with a little of imagination as children have we could see these little flighty ladys, but all this was in the childs eye and mind.

My Grandmother used to play with the girls when she was a girl to her they were true, to the girls it was true, to the world it was true, but to keep it all hush hush it was a fairy tale.

Even grown ups love a fairy tale i say let it be.

beck1959.

[autumnbelle]

Had not ever read the 'true' story behind the movie, but the movie itself was oh so sweet.

My people have a tradition similar to the fairies and there has been quite a bit of proof and evidence as Westerners would call it, but we are encouraged not to share that. My father was going to write a children's story about some of that, and was highly discouraged.

It seems the wee folk would be less likely to exist were they caught on tape rather than more so. Much like ghosts . . . they are more difficult than that. The hoaxes, though, do make for wonderful stories!

[Jamieayla]

Sure this particular instance may have been a hoax, but that's hardly to say that all faerie encounters are hoaxes. There have been many instances throughout history where people have claimed to come into contact with faeries. I'm sure some of them were genuine.