Cottingley Fairies

1 of 5 Photographs taken by Elsie and Frances Griffiths

With the invention of photography came the invention of photo editing. The "Cottingley fairies" were used as evidence of psychic phenomenon by Sir Conan Doyle, when he was commissioned to write a magazine article for The Strand in 1920. Viewers had mixed reactions.

The photo series was taken by two cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, ages 16 and 9, respectively, in 1917. Harold Snelling, a photography expert, was sent the original glass plate negatives for examination and concluded, "the two negatives are entirely genuine, unfaked photographs ... [with] no trace whatsoever of studio work involving card or paper models".
Kodak technicians, at the time, concurred, "showed no signs of being faked", they concluded that "this could not be taken as conclusive evidence ... that they were authentic photographs of fairies.”

In the early 1980’s, Elsie and Frances admitted that the photographs were faked, but Frances maintained that the fifth and final photograph was authentic.