1 | Cottingley Fairies

In 1917, two young cousins returned from the creek behind their house with thrilling news: they had photographed fairies! Their parents were skeptical, but soon the photos of the "Cottingley Fairies" were circulated, eventually finding a champion in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.   

Sources:
 ‘Fairies Photographed: An Epoch-Making Event.’ Strand Magazine, 1920
'The Coming of the Fairies' by Arthur Conan Doyle (London: Hodder & Stoughton)
‘That Astonishing Affair of the Cottingley Fairies,' by G. Crawley. British Journal of Photography
https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/power-at-play-in-paranormal-history/ 
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/father-and-son-who-believed-faeries

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hug sound no one, I haven't seen.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
What us have a look to see the.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to Hoax a new podcast or is it it is?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Every episode we sort through the lies we wish were
true and truths sound like lies.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
This is not just another scam and scandal podcast. Oh no.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
These are stories of pranks and griffs throughout history, so
big and bold they make us question why we believe.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm the ghost of Danish Schwartz and I'm the evil
twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show, Lizzie. I
am so excited that we're doing this podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm thrilled. It's like the highlight of my schedule.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Same and also just an opportunity to talk about one
of my favorite things, which is historical hoaxes. So just
a bit about what this show is. If you're just
joining us, whichever one is because it's our first episode.
If you've been here before, how time travel I guess future.
This show is going to be me, Danish Wortz and
Lizzie Logan YEP, talking through historical and modern hoaxes every

(01:14):
episode we'll focus on a new hoax. I'm Dana. I'm
a writer and a podcaster. I host the podcast Noble Blood,
which is about royals throughout history, also with iHeartRadio and
the podcast Very Special Episodes. I've also written six books
occasionally write television. I just love researching weird areas of

(01:35):
history and talking about them, usually into a microphone.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Lizzie, who are you? Who am I? I'm Lizzie. I'm
a comedy writer. By day. You can find me writing
for Glamor Magazine. By night, I'm on places like McSweeney's.
I contributed for a very long time to Reductress.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
And I love a joke. I love a scam. I
love a prank that goes far too far.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I love lies in slim flams.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And we're also real life friends.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
That's just like a thing that people should know going
in that we are real life human friends. It is.
And is this just an excuse to hang out more? Possibly,
if you decide maybe this podcast is the biggest hoax
of all, I will do the research and bring the
story one week.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
And I'll do the research and bring the story the
next week. We are not investigators so much as we
are storytellers and compilers, so.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Well, should we get started on our first hopes?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think we should.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I I'm very very excited. I think the first hoax
that we focused on was really important to me, and
it's one that's sort of a like a hoax classic.
We're talking about the Cottingly Fairies, Lizzie. What do you
know about the Cottingly Fairies? To begin with?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Okay, so everything I know about the Coddingly Fairies is
from a movie that I caught on TV when I
was a child in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Oh what movie and starring how.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I don't remember, and I didn't look it up because
I wanted you to do all the research. I remember
is it was back in the days of the olden
turn of the century times, and it was the era
of like spirit photography, and people did not particularly know
what a photograph was like supposed to look like. And
you know, your average Victorian or whatever. I'm sure you'll

(03:18):
tell me the time period. I'm sure you'll tell me
the time period. But your average Joe Schmo had no
idea what like a double exposure could be because they're
just weren't that many people making photographs and So these
two little girls, who I believe were sisters, figured out
a way to like super impose like a drawing of
a fairy maybe, or a photograph of someone dressed up

(03:38):
I don't know, onto a photograph, and they would show
them to people, and nobody knew what a photo was
like supposed to look like. So they're like, I guess
it's real, because you can't take a photo of some
that's not real.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Okay, you're like sixty percent of the way there. Okay,
I'm very excited to talk to you about it because
these are perfect misconceptions.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
The other pieces of information I believe are somewhere in
my brain yeh yeah. Or that maybe one of the
sisters admitted it was fake and the other one admitted
that like all but a couple of them were fake,
and maybe died insisting that she had taken a photograph
of a ferry. And I'm also I'm picturing this in
like the Secret Garden Time.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yes, well, that you're accurate about it, So it is
secret Garden Vibe. It's Speacretgarden vibes. Yes, one is Secret
Garden Times.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Secret Garden Times is in Little Princess Times and the.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Little Princess times is there's like a war going on.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
There's definitely colonialism going on. I feel like it's like
a long war type situation.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, well, let's get into it. Let's get into it.
So it's nineteen seventeen. Sure, we're after Queen Victoria, we're
after Edwardian.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Where are we?

Speaker 1 (04:47):
So little town called Coddingly near Bradford, which is slightly
bigger town in the top middle of England. And it's
two cousins, okay, one is named Elsie Wright and the
other is Francis Griffiths. Elsie is six team this summer.
Francis is nine years old, and Francis and her mom
they had been living in South Africa and so they
moved to back to England and they were staying with

(05:09):
their cousins like while they got situated. So these little
girls are living together.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well when sixteen you said, yeah, okay, so there's a
little girl and then like an adult in those Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
A girl who actually like was no longer in school
and was working. Yeah okay, but it's they're still her
cousin and the two little girls like to go play
at the beck and a beck is like a little
stream onto the bottom of her v near their house.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Sure, because there's no like TikTok.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's seventeen. What are you gonna do? The mom was like,
they made a picnic lunch and went down to the beck.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
That was a day they're kill a day doing.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
That, honestly, kind of a good day. I would do
that now.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
I wouldn't but have fun.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
You wouldn't have a picnic by a stream.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I would maybe, I don't know. It seems like there
would be a lot of bugs.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah. Well, and also you would get wet, because what
happened is Francis the nine year old would come back
and her pants and shoes would be wet, and her
mom would be mad because in those days laundry was
like a huge hassle, probably, but her mom was annoyed.
And Francis, when her mom got mad at her, said,
it's not my fault. I was playing with the fairies.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Typical nine year old excuse.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, And the mom is like, very funny, go to
your room or whatever the punishment was. And Elsie, the
sixteen year old, said, will show them. They borrowed Elsie's
dad's camera, which was a Midge camera, and we'll get
a little bit into the details of the camera.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I'm picturing a big box on a tripod with a
hood that you put over your face.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
We're a little past that. It's a little smaller and
a little easier than you think.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
But her dad, Arthur, was an amateur photographer and he
had his own dark room, and so Elsie, the sixteen
year old, said, let's borrow my dad's camera and show
the grownups what's what. And they come back and say, look,
we took a picture of a fairy. And I'm going
to text you a picture and I want you to
maybe describe what you see.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's really cute. Okay. So there's a girl posing in
front of what looks like a waterfall, and she's sort
of resting her elbows on some moss, and right in
front of her are four fairies who are little women
with big butterfly wings, and the girl maybe has a

(07:22):
flower crown. Yeah, that looks and it says Alice and
the Fairies. And it's dated July nineteen seventeen.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
So it's actually Francis who's in this photo. We'll get
to the name change a little later. When they published
the photos, it was for their anonymity to protect the innocent.
But it's a photo that Elsie took of her cousin
Francis on this Midge camera on photographic plates. It's not
on film. This is just sort of the difference. It's
kind of boring, but basically, it's a light sensitive mixture

(07:53):
of silver salts coated on a thin glass plate and
then when light hits them, it imprints the image really quick. Sure,
so it's not film, but it's not like one of
those old giant cameras that requires a whole room. Okay,
but they take this photo and they go back to
the grown ups and they're like, see, we did see fairies.
And the grownups reaction is, no, you didn't. That's very funny.

(08:14):
How did you do that? And that causes the girls
to want to double down. They're like, no, we did
see fairies. And a few months later they come back
with a second photo and I'm texting you the second photo.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Now, see this is the type of picture I would take.
She's interacting with the fairy. This is the older girl.
This is Elsie, the sixteen year old. And this is
actually Elsie and a gnome. Yes, it is labeled Iris
and the gnome. Yeah, And she So it's like a
meadow and there's a woman in a hat and she

(08:46):
is sort of leaning forward, she's sitting down, she's leaning forward,
and there's like a little a little silly man who
has a pointed hat and a rough about his neck
and I think a feather in his cap and he's
he also maybe has wings and he's doing like a
little jig.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, they're having fun. Yes, So at this point they
come back with this photo and again their parents are like,
stop messing with the camera. We don't know how you're
doing it. But the dad says, give me my camera back.
You can't use it anymore. But Elsie's mom, Polly, kind
of believes it a little bit. Polly is a little
more woo woo. She's casually a member of this thing

(09:27):
called the Theosophical Society. Have you ever heard of that?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
No, I have a couple questions. We can put a
pin in them.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, no, give me questions please.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So, okay, do the adults ever think, well, why don't
I go down to the beck and see four myself?

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yes, and adults will continue to do that, but only
children can see fairies. Oh of course, I'm like, actually
a little embarrassed. I had to explain that to you.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
I'm a stupid woman. And then my other thing is
more of a common Yeah, if it were like me
and I had gotten caught doing this, would maybe like
at this point, I would advise them to pivot to
just like being cool artsy photographer, Like they have a talent.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, but it's like they have a skill. But it's
that thing of when someone's not falling for your trick,
you want to double down.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know. But they could just like make money as
party photographers who then like make it look like you
had fairies at you're party.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Anyway, Well, it's a good theory if that's how they're
taking these photos. Maybe they're just taking photos. If they're
not just liars. They had a skill, but maybe they're
just taking photos of fairies. Lizzie.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
This is another thing hoax listeners should be aware of.
I'm a skeptic. I'm the scully in this relationship.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
As opposed to me. I actually think they're fairies. That's
the thing about me. I believe you do it. They're Yeah,
boiler alert fully confessed, I do believe there are fairies.
But yeah, so Polly is a little more woo woo.
A member of this thing called the Theosophical Society, which
is this weird quasi religious movement that started in eighteen
seventy five. That's kind of a combination of like philo occultism,

(11:01):
and comparative religion. And basically, I'm going to quote what
like one of their fundamental beliefs is, it's quote forming
a nucleus of universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex,
cast or color. And then they also believe in human
evolution on Earth, but also a spiritual hierarchy of evolution,
where like there's a potential for humans to become advanced

(11:24):
spiritual beings. And fairies just sort of like fit into
this mythology. Okay, it's now nineteen twenty, so it is
two and a half years later. Okay, Polly goes to
a talk of the Theosophical Society in the nearby town
and the talk is on fairies, and afterward is just
chatting with people and being like, you know, my daughter

(11:44):
got a picture of fairies.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
And so far it's just these two photos.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
So far. It's just they took the camera away. Yeah,
the dad was like, stop messing with my camera and
she's chatting and tells people her daughter took these pictures,
and the woman who's doing the lecture was like, well,
can I see those pictures. She's like, sure, Polly sends
the pictures to that lady. They kind of get around
and they reach a man named Edward Gardner, who's a
very prominent member of the Theosophical Society. Another version of

(12:11):
the story I've read is that he saw the photos
on display at an annual like Theosophical conference. Okay, but
he sees these photos and he is thrilled about them.
I'm gonna quote from him, and he says, quote the
fact that two young girls had not only been able
to see fairies, which others had done obviously, of course,

(12:32):
but had actually, for the first time ever, been able
to materialize them at a density sufficient for their images
to be recorded on a photographic plate meant that it
was possible that the next cycle of evolution was underway.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Sure, So his thing is less like, oh, fairies exist.
It's like, oh, we know fairies exist, but not everyone
is able to perceive them as solid in such a
way that a flash bulb would.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yes, and now that we well, now that we have
photographic evidence of them. So that's something big is happening. Okay,
He you know, as you do, sends the photos to
an expert, a photography expert.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Oh okay, I think I've a I was like, I
feel like these people are the Okay, he sends them
of true photography.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
He sends them to a photography expert named Harold Snelling,
and he says, the thing you can see about this
photo is it actually has not been tampered with it
after the fact.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Can I posit a theory?

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, I'm not going to tell you if you're right
or wrong though.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Okay, but I just want on the record, if the
photos haven't been tampered with after the fact, did they
just draw pictures of fairies? And like I'm thinking, like
basically the old timey version of cardboard cutouts.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
I mean, that's that's an interesting theory. But according to Gardner,
mister Snelling's report on the two Negatives says that he
is perfectly certain of two things connected to these photos, namely,
quote one exposure only, so not a double exposure. And two,
all the figures of the fairies moved during the exposure,
which was instantaneous. And then this is Gardner I'm quoting again.

(14:07):
As I put all sorts of pressing questions to him,
relating to paper or cardboard figures and backgrounds and paintings
and all the artifices of the modern studio, he proceeded
to demonstrate by showing me other negatives in prints that
certainly supported his view. So they're okay, So I.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Have the same brain as an old timey skeptic.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, but he's like, don't they look like fairies to me?
I don't know about it. Okay, here's a key point.
Gardner wants these photos that he can display when he's
giving lectures, and so he has Snelling clarify them. He
basically has Snelling photoshop them. And the photos that I
showed you, basically, any time you ever see any of

(14:50):
these photos, the ones that are online because they are
the ones that have been published, are ones that Snelling
has clarified.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Okay, so the blurry version is the one that was
convincing these people exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
So anytime now that anyone is looking at these photos,
it's like a rudimentary photoshopped version of them.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Are the originals like on display somewhere?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Not on display, but a museum does have them so
maybe they're on display if you live near the Science
and Media Museum in Bradford. I know they have a
camera or two cameras that these girls used and some
of the original negatives and report back because I am
curious everything they have.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, if you could take a pic and send it
to Hoax the Podcast at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
So that's the key point here is that he intensifies. Okay,
the photos intensified is in air quotes. I'm using his word,
and that's what people are looking at when they're like, oh, fairies, I'm.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Thinking of time making oj Blacker on the cover. Yeah,
being like I'm just intensifying it.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
They're just intensifying that they're like deeply.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Changing the meaning of the image.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
So word of these photographs gets around the spiritualist community,
which brings us to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Okay, love this guy, yea, love this guy. Makes perfect
sense that he is in these times as I also
think of them as Sherlock time.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, he's butt in his head and everywhere.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Okay, so we're with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Ladies Man
Man's Man Man about Town.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Man About Town, a Scottish author and physician and a
doctor born in Edinburgh. This is nineteen twenty right now,
he's sixty one years old, already very famous, very successful,
very rich, already knighted. It's kind of devastating. He wrote
Sherlock Holmes when he was the first Scherlock Holmes, when
he was twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
And that's all anybody ever liked.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, and this is by the time that this is happening,
it's been thirty three years since Sherlock Holmes came out,
and like he's already killed Sherlock and brought him back.
He's so famous. But he's also a spiritualist and really
interested in psychic and paranormal phenomenon which I actually find
very endearing. Again, this is like the as he said,

(17:02):
the turn of the century. And he's a scientist, and
I think the idea that there's a lot out there
that we don't understand is very scientific. He actually writes,
I'm gonna quote him here.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
It definitely speaks to like a curiosity about the state
of the world.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, but the problem is when you're bad at the
science part of figuring out what's actually real. Like the
curiosity is good, but then you have to examine things empirically.
People think that he became a spiritualist after the death
of his son in World War One. That's sort of
like the conventional knowledge his son died and then became
interested in spirits. That's actually not true because he had

(17:39):
been writing about spiritualism years before his son died. But
spiritualism does have these spikes during times of senseless death,
especially among young people, like as you mentioned, spirit photography,
which is like the practice of taking a photo and
someone being like, ooh, look behind in the photo, there's
a spirit, which was a simple double exposure.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Usually, I will say, if you ever look up spirit photographs,
those to me are so much more convincing because it's
just like blurs behind you, and I'm like, maybe that
is a ghost.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Maybe it is a ghost. Those started after the Civil War,
those I came into the main prominence. And then this
is happening after World War One, indeed, So it's like
these moments of like trauma and death and trying to
make sense of it all. But yeah, so even though
he had been interested in spiritualism before, there are like
a lot of tragedies happening around his life right now

(18:29):
where you're like I understand why this man wants to
think there is life behind the veil because his son
Kingsley died in nineteen eighteen of pneumonia. His only brother,
Andes died in nineteen nineteen. He had a bunch of
sisters but only one brother. And then in nineteen twenty
his mother Mary died, So it's like son, brother, mother,

(18:50):
all quick succession, and then his dad. His dad did
die earlier, but is another whole tragedy that I will
get into later in the episode. So it's like this
man is deal with sad stuff, okay, and he sees
these photos and he is delighted, and like Edward Gardner
and like Lizzie Logan, he's like, I'm going to go
get an expert opinion. And so Doyle goes to Kodak

(19:13):
the photo people, Oh my god, and the thing I've
heard of Yeah, and he says quote, they examined the
plates carefully, and neither of them could find any evidence
of superposition or other trick. On the other hand, they
were of opinion that if they set to work with
all their knowledge and resources, they could produce such pictures
by natural means, and therefore they would not undertake to

(19:34):
say these were preternatural. So basically Kodak is like, we
can't immediately see how this happened, but fairies aren't real,
and we could probably figure out how to do.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
That, right. There's like a lot of steps between these
photos are real and fairies are real exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Doyle also, i think, very charmingly, reaches out to a
friend of his he's a clairvoyant to ask if the
photos are real, and the is like, I think these
photos were faked because I'm not seeing little girls. I'm
seeing like an old bald man taking these photos. And
Doyle's like, well, that if that settles that, until Gardner's like, no,

(20:13):
that's snelling. That's the guy who clarified the photos. That's
who the psychic is picking up on. So cross that
off your list. That one is solved.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
That is how all of these fake psychics work. Yes,
that they say something so vague that it ends up
making sense because it doesn't particularly mean anything.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
The other main criticism that people are bringing up is like,
why do these fairies look like stereotypical fairies?

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Like, why do they look like the fairies that like
a child would imagine? And the answer at least Conan
Doyle brings up as a theory is that these fairies
are quote thought forms, that they're manifestations of these children's imagination.
And he has another theory, maybe we are just right
about how fairies look. Maybe our cultural knowledge of how

(21:06):
fairies work comes because that's that's how fairies actually are.
So that's intrination, he says, you know, if they are conventional,
it may be that fairies have really been seen in
every generation and so some correct description of them has
been retained. See that's like using logic to back up
something that is fairies. It's the reason that I think

(21:29):
smart people sometimes are the most susceptible to drink cults
and stuff. Yeah, because you can justify things in a
smart way, because that's like a pretty smart explanation. Actually,
I think.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's somewhat smart. I mean, the truly smart take would
be like, yeah, these little girl's made.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Of the faeries. Well, that's what Conan Doyle kind of concludes.
He basically says it is clear that it was the
character and surroundings of the children upon which the inquiry
must turn, rather than upon the photos themselves. Basically, like
experts can look at these photos and definitively prove they
were faked. So the question is could these girls have

(22:06):
taken those photos? And that brings us to I think
the big headline reason why Gardner and why Conan Doyle
fundamentally believed that these photos were real, which is a
combination of like classicism and sexism, because basically, in a letter, Conan.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Doyle's these girls aren't smart enough to fake photos.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, he says, quote we had certainly traced the pictures
to two children of the artisan class, which means like
their dad is working class and such photographic tricks would
be entirely beyond them. Conan Doyle basically is like, well
Snelling looked at these pictures and he thought they were real.
So how could two little girls from a village have
the plant and the scale to turn out a fake

(22:46):
which could not be detected by an expert in London.
And also it was the first they said, it was
the first photo of these the girls had ever taken,
so they're like, they couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, people don't want to believe that they've been duped.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah. Also people don't like to believe that young girls
are capable of things.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
I mean hashtag believe women, but not when they talk
about fairies.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, there's also the idea, as you said, that she
had just drawn these fairies on cardboard and like, you know,
stuck them on the ground. People go to look at
Elsie's art because guess what everyone's like. Elsie's really artistic.
She's always drawing a lot. She's studied at a local
art college.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Ok.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
But Doyle wrote, quote, while she could do landscapes, the
fairy figures, which had attempted in imitation of those she
had seen, were entirely uninspired and bore no possible resemblance
to those in the photographs. And then later a journalist
will come to investigate and he'll say, quote, as to
whether she could have drawn the fairies when she was sixteen,

(23:46):
I am doubtful. Lately she has taken up watercolor drawing,
and her work, which I carefully examined, does not reveal
that ability in a marked degree. Though she possesses a
remarkable knowledge of color for an untrained artist, but a condescension.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
She's good at colors. This is so like the level
of investigating they do on like a TV show.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
I'm going to send you a quote from uh charlot
Combe from charlot Comb's from Conan Doyle. This was his
sort of conclusion, and I would love you to read
out loud his idea.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Okay, granting the honesty of the father, which no one
has ever impugned, Elsie could only have done it by
cutout images which must have been of exquisite beauty, of
many different models, fashioned and kept without the knowledge of
her parents, and capable of giving the impression of motion
when carefully examined by an expert. Charley, this is a

(24:43):
large order.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
See again, it's like, okay, but it's still more likely
than fucking fairies. Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Accurately described something very plausible.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Like again, I my, it's like, well, there's no way
these girls could have done it. It's like, okay, so
someone helped them. Like there's so many logical leaps that
either these girls did it all on their own or
there's fairies.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Just I want to point out, by the second there's
going to be more photos taken and by the time
that Arthur Conan Doyle is involved, Elsie is nineteen.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
She says she could draw something.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
She's out of school, she's studying at a local art college.
She's working as an illustrator for a local jewelers, and
she's a production assistant at a local photography studio, and
also she does post photo coloring work at a local
Christmas card fact. Well, she's good at colors, rudimentary colors
for an untrained artist. But this is not some like

(25:37):
people sometimes say when they're the cuttingly fairies. I think
they're picturing like children, children, And this is a nineteen.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Years girly picturing like a twelve year old and a
ten year old. And this girl is a teen.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
So Doyle is excited about these two photos and sends Gardner.
Doyle is off in Australia doing a lecture tour, so
he goes, you go visit the family, and Gardner gives
them two new cameras, Butcher and son w Butcher and
son cameo folding play cameras, which are fancier, one for
each of them, and he's like, take photos. And now

(26:10):
this gentleman and this very very famous man have given
you two very expensive cameras and told you to go
take photos of fairies.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Okay, at what point can the nineteen year old not
see fairies anymore? Though? Because only kids can see fairies.
Everybody knows that, Dana, Lizzie.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
That is such a good point. And I'm so glad
you brought this up because, as Gardner is describing this
to Doyle, he says, quote, but two children such as
these are are rare, and I fear now that we
are late, because almost certainly the inevitable will shortly happen.
One of them will quote fall in love and then hey, presto.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Hey presto, she can't see fairies.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
See applying that if you have sex, you can't see
fairies obviously, So I guess that's uh, I guess that's
what he said.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Say. I would think it would be like getting your period,
you can't see fairies anymore.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
But I don't want to speculate on this child's but
like she's nineteen. Yeah. And also at this point, I
remember how I said, like Francis the little girl, they
were only living with them because they had like just
moved back.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Okay, have they moved away.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
They've moved a little bit away now, and of course
they write Arthur Conan. Doyle says, like, one of our
difficulties is that the associated aura of the two girls
is necessary. Quote this joining of auras to produce a
stronger effect than either can get singly is common enough
in psychic matters, and so we need the combined power
of both the girls to see.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
That actually does make sense to me, because I don't
know if you know this, but you and I, Dana,
when we get together, we are so stupid that we
cannot figure out how to use a slot machine or
find a car.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
That is uh completely accurate.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Our combined auras are Belma's Hilldmazell.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Well. So, now now that Elsie is nineteen, she goes
to with these brand new cameras and takes three more
photos for Sir Arthur, Conan, Doyle and Gardner. And I
just sent you two of the photos.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oh you know what this reminds me of.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
And here's the third photo.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
A little bit when you were talking about people underestimating
women is when Taylor's wife had to write a whole
album by herself to prove that she wrote her own music.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah. Yeah, these are the speak now, the speak now
speak now.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
It is enchanted.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I actually do think these photos. Are these better than
the original?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yes? Okay, So there's Fairy offering flowers to Iris.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
And that's I'll see the older girl.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yes, a girl sort of gazing at a branch, and
on the branch stands a woman wearing like a very
cute dress.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
It's like also a very chic of nineteen twenties, so
it's like a little flapper.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
It's got a drop waist for sure, and she.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Has a little flapper cut. Yeah. You could say, well,
maybe the fairies see human fashion and are I like this?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, Or of course, if you're giving them form by
imagining them, you give them a good outfit.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Then there's Alice and leaping fairy, which is the younger girl,
and she's in a thicket, and there is a fairy
who is indeed leaping near her shoulder. All right, fairy sunbath, Comma, elves, comma,
et cetera. This one is the realist looking to me,
because it's blurry and it's kind of hard to tell
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
There are no girls in it.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
There's no humans in it. There's just like a bramble
and some flowers, and then one woman and she's wearing
like a flowy dress. And then I guess like some
more floey fabric is maybe caught in the branches.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
So obviously Conan Doyle sees these photos, He's like, yeah,
these are real. He's like, these are real. He publishes
an article December nineteen twenty in the Strand magazine, which
is like a general interest magazine that had also published
Sherlock Holmes stories, and the headline is Fairies Photographed and
epoch making events described by a Conan Doyle. The first

(30:03):
article is just the first two photos, and he changed
their names to Alice and Iris to protect their anonymity.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Good names.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
And then in March nineteen twenty one, he publishes these
next three photos, The Evidence for Fairies, with more fairy photographs,
and then.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Oh, I have a question, Yeah, are these second batch
of photos also touched up by mister mister Snellling.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yes, they are, okay, just to make sure, you know,
touched up for display and for resale. Then he publishes
a book called The Coming of the Fairies, A whole book,
A whole Well, here's what I'll say. I read this book.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
You're a good woman, Dani.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
No, no, it's a very very short book, okay. And
also you're like, man, you could just write a book
so fast, because this book is very very short. B
A big old chunk of it is just the full
text of the article he wrote for the Strand. And
then also a lot of this book is just letters
from Gardner. And then part of this book is a

(31:01):
full article that someone else wrote criticizing the fairies. And
then he was like, this is an accurate critique, which
is like a.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Good criticizing the existence or being like these fairies aren't
very good role.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Models, criticizing the photos, saying the photos are a hoax.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Basically like he that's who I want to hang out with.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, he was giving the book the coming Up of
the Fairies does do both sides things, but so it
also has this long article by someone kind of pointing
out that it possibly is a hoax, but that Conan
Dout was like, these are fair points. And then at
the end is just a lot of letters from people
saying like I've also seen fairies. So it's like he
wrote a book, but like he wrote a.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Book, Okay, it's more like the collected works of people
who believe the fairies. It's more just like who doesn't.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
It's more just like a research dossier for this episode fantastic.
It was very helpful. But yeah, so he writes this
book and basically at the end, even with his like
just asking questions vibe, he clearly thinks they're fairies, seem fairies.
But he does say quote, I do not myself contend
that the proof is as overwhelming as in the case
of spiritualistic phenomena. So he's like other, there's other proof

(32:08):
that's better. It's like ghosts, for sure. Fairies probably far
from being resented. Such criticism, so long as it is
earnest and honest, must be most welcome to those whose
only aim is the fearless search for the truth just
asking questions. The response to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishing

(32:30):
a book about fairies and an article about fairies is
not entirely positive. Instead, I'm going to show you a
political cartoon that I would love you to describe.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Okay. So it's a it's an old man, I guess Arthur.
That is Arthur. Okay. So it's he's very large, and
he's sitting on a stool, and he has smoke about
his head. He has his head in the and he
has shackles on his ankles, and the chain is being
held by a guy in like us like a robe,

(33:05):
and he's smoking a pipe and he has an intense
widow's peaking. I don't know Satan, he's.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Sherlock Holmes, my friend. A poor Sherlock Holmes has to
be shackled to this dodo.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
I mean, there are certain characters who I wish existed
apart from their authors, So I kind of get it.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
And this headline from the San Francisco Examiner, A Buzzy's
from San Francisco A says poor Sherlock Holmes hopelessly crazy.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's a very nice headline.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Conan Doyle, who has been victimized by transparent spirit frauds
now offers photographic evidence that fairies really exist just like
the story books.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Hey, listen, there's authors I wish would stop listening to
certain crazy people.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
I mean, the public response is not, oh my god,
fairies are real, it's look at this stupid author. Yes,
people are mostly embarrassed and making fun of Doyle, sure,
which I do think is public. Yeah. And I think
is also an important point in hoaxes that we think
if someone said, you know, Cottingly fairies, Oh what a hoax,

(34:08):
that you're like, oh, they fooled the world. But that's
really not the case. They just fooled some people, sure,
and that happened all the time. And they're the one
article that I told you that he Conan Doyle in
his own book published like a very long article critique
and it ended with a really good burn, which is
knowing children and knowing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has legs,

(34:31):
I decide that the miss Carpenters have pulled one of them.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Cute.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Carpenter's was also like the name that he changed from
right for his article, and the London newspaper Truth wrote
for the true explanation of these fairy photographs, what is
wanted is not a knowledge of a cult phenomena, but
a knowledge of children. So it's kind of like you
said right at the beginning. One guy, Major John Hall Edwards,

(34:56):
who was also was a photographer and a pioneer of
medical X ray, was like, I have no hesitation in
saying these photos could have been faked. And also it's
dangerous because putting such absurd ideas into the minds of
children will result in later life in quote manifestations and
nervous disorder and mental disturbances. So he's taking it even
a little far.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
I have a question, Yeah, are the girls at this point,
are they like getting rich off of this? Like, what
are they getting out of this other than I would
assume having fun duping people.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
No, what they're getting out of this is annoyed. The
main reporter who wrote this long takedown comes to Elsie's job,
and to quote the article, he says, like her parents,
she just said she had nothing to say about the
photographs and singularly enough used the same expression as her
father and mother. I am fed up with the thing.
So you know, journalists keep coming to them and they're

(35:48):
just done. And also no money. Because Arthur Conan Doyle
did right when he first heard about the photos. He
wrote separately to Elsie, the older girl and her dad
and sent Elsie a book which like she loved and
was like really honored by, and he said, can I
buy the negatives? And the dad just gave it to
him for free because he's like, Okay, if this is

(36:09):
like a prank my daughters are doing, I don't want
to benefit financially, like ooh, we're not trying to hoax anyone,
We're not trying to scam anyone. And if fairies are real,
then like we don't want to profit from that, so
they just gave the negatives for free. So the girls
are getting nothing except annoyed and embarrassed at school.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
If you're not even making money, like just say you why,
like just give it up?

Speaker 1 (36:32):
You know. Like we're going to get to the later legacy.
But I want to take one brief, tiny detour back
to Arthur Conan Doyle's dad. Okay, I mentioned that there
was a tragedy.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yes, his dad fairy kill him.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
His dad, Charles Altmont Doyle was an illustrator and he
went to a quote lunatic asylum. He was an artist
that like drank himself into oblivion and was in and
out of asylums. Died in a lunatic asylum in eighteen
ninety three. But he was always even by the time
he was like institutionalized drawing ethical creatures, including fairies.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Okay, and did they look like these fairies?

Speaker 1 (37:12):
They did? Kind of, I mean, because kind of this
is just like how people draw fairies, stereotypical fairies. But people,
I think, like to make something of the fact that
like Doyle's poor mad father had seen fairies, and now
Doyle is like really trying to convince the world that
they were real and there's an article from Lapham's quarterly,
like a very short article, but at the end of

(37:33):
that talks about Arthur Conan Doyle's dad, And at the
end it says, I'm no Doyle expert, but here's where
my mind goes. Conan Doyle's belief in fairies was an
act of revelation and forgiveness, a veiled acknowledgment of his
father's secret world.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
That's so sweet that he didn't want to He was like,
my dad wasn't crazy. He just saw these things no
one else could see.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
It's so sweet. And like, if we were making a
biopic and like bennettict Cumberback, like I think like starring
a cumber batche there'll be a scene where like he's
reading the criticisms of everyone being like Doyle is an adult,
like fairies aren't real, and then he like goes to
visit his dad in the asylum and sees the fairy drawings.
I it's sweet, but I don't actually think it's true

(38:16):
because his dad died twenty five years before this. So
and he also like was never close with his dad
and like didn't have a relationship with the dad. So maybe,
well maybe here's what I'll say. Yeah, if you go
to the Mulin Rouge in Paris and you drink absent,
you can see a fairy and she is Kylie Minogue,
and she is Kyler Minogue, and these are sort of

(38:37):
Kylie Minogue genre ferry. They could totally be played by
Kylie Njogue. So later, after all this conan do you know,
writes his articles, Gardner visits the girls in Coddingly one
more time with more cameras and more photographic plates, and
also brings like an occultist friend of his, and he
wants more photos and the girls are like, oh no,

(38:59):
can't no more this time. The weather's not cooperating, and
as he said, as Arthur Coundoyle writes, the fates were
most unkind and a combination of circumstances stood in the
way of success. But the girls are like, oh no, yeah,
we can still see the fairies. And the occultists that
Gardener brought was like, yeah, I see fairies everywhere here.
There are definitely fairies here. Or he has glaucoma, and

(39:25):
so for the next kind of few decades people more
or less forget about this. Occasionally people will interview the
girls and they sort of hint at the fact that
it wasn't real. They don't come out and say it
was a hoax, but they say things like, oh, it
was just we were photographing our thoughts.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
That's cute. I also wish they would say how they
did it.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, So that's sort of where we're at for the
next few decades until the eighties, the nineteen eighties and
nineteen eighties, and we're introducing a man named Jeffrey Crawley
who's the editor of the British Journal of Fatahography. Are
the girls dead at this point? They are not, but
they're really old. They're seventies and eighties, okay, And Jeffrey

(40:08):
Crawley is like, look, I'm going to start from square
one and examine this scientifically, and he writes a ten
part series for the British Journal of Photography from nineteen
eighty two to nineteen eighty three exposing them as fakes,
incredibly methodically, using the exact same cameras and the exact
same lenses, figuring out exactly objectively how you would have

(40:29):
made the photos look like that. And he's kind of
the first one who goes back to the original negatives
and sees the way they're blurry, in the way that
they were before Snelling clarified them and figures out painstakingly
that they were in fact hoaxes.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
This is the type of stuff I love. I love
the scene in Apollo thirteen where they have all this
stuff that the astronauts have on board and they have
to figure out how to make an air filter. I
love when you just like get the gear and try
to make that.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Is exactly what he's doing. He gets the original cameras, yes,
and figures it out. I love that he's gone where
I'm going to go through the explanation. But I just
think it's very very sweet that the New York Times
in his obituary, he was just so nice about it.
In this takedown he like, isn't mean or he's an
expert who's not.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
It sounds like he was impressed. He was like, you
did a really good job faking these photographs.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And then his New York Times obituary headline is Jeffrey
Crawley eighty three dies semi colon gently deflated a fairy hoax,
and at the end of his article he wrote, of
course there are fairies, just as there is Father Christmas.
The trouble comes when you try to make them corporeal.
They are fine poetic concepts taking us out of this

(41:45):
at times too ugly real world. At least Elsie gave
us a myth which has never harmed anyone. And he
also gives Elsie her props, which no one else has,
and says, how many professed photographers can claim to have
equaled her achievement with the first photograph they ever took.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
That's so nice. This podcast is not that nice.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, he's so nice. And Crawley receives a letter dated
February seventeenth, nineteen eighty three from a woman named Elsie
Hill maiden name right, who was eighty one years old, Okay,
and she says, I am going to send you a
quote and please read.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
This is way more heartwarming than I thought it would be.
Dear mister Crawley, thank you for your letter revealing so
much depth and understanding of the pickle. Francis and I
got ourselves into that day when our practical joke fell
flat on its face, when no one would believe we
had got pictures of real fairies. Just imagine if they had,

(42:46):
the joke would have ended there and then. But instead
the laugh was on us both feeling rather silly, we
let our joke life flat on its face till some
years later when Conan Doyle came into it.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Which is basically what happened with these kids got annoy
they figured out how to fake these fairy photographs, wanting
to fool their parents, and when their parents didn't even
pretend to be fooled, not even like, oh my god,
fair the girls would have been like, we tricked you, yeah,
because that's how but instead they were like, no, they're real.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
And all this because they wouldn't stop getting wet.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Because they wouldn't stop playing in this flashing in the stream.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
I mean, who hasn't been there, but right.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
It's like they just wanted to be able to like
put their hands up and say like I fooled you, yeah,
and that their parents didn't let them do that, and
so then they were like, well, now what The answer,
which you figured out right away, is she was an
amazed She was a really good artist, and she just
copied fairies from a book onto cardboard, drew them and
used hat pins to plant them around the.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Girls, and then they maybe wiggled in the wind, and
suddenly the fairies were flying.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
And also the originals were blurry. The negatives were later clarified,
so when people see movement, they're probably like seeing things
that are kind of confusing. And what's also kind of
happening is like it's a simple trick that then is
layered on this clarification. So like even experts are like, oh,
it kind of looks weird in a way I can't

(44:08):
quite put a finger on.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
To be clear, if you haven't looked these up yet,
they look extremely two dimensional. Yeah, they do not in
any like if you had made a little a little
like figurine, it would have more depth than shadowing. Yes,
it they look like pictures.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
But people, it's a classic case of people believing what
they want to believe. This situation where I think people
like people today like the fallacy that people in the
past were dumb and that like we look at these
photos and you're like, oh, it's so obvious they're two dimensional.
But if you have this religious worldview and these photos

(44:48):
validate that worldview, you're gonna want to see the evidence
of that. But yeah, she just use hatpins and then
threw it all in the stream. And I also want
to point out that something that you said at the
beginning of this episode, which is true to some degree,
which is like, well, cameras were kind of news, so
people just saw a picture and were like, that's real. Yes, yes,

(45:10):
to some degree, but I guess now if people just
believe AI slop on Facebook no matter what. And but
also the idea that like people were rubs about cameras
is also kind of a misconception because double exposure was
like a known thing, like in advertisings, cameras were being
advertised for their abilities to take trick photographs, like it

(45:30):
was a known thing that you could do.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
I am wrong.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
No, it's like it's a nuanced thing. Because also people
aren't mamoliths. Some people are gullible, some people aren't.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
I mean, there is that quote that's like any sufficiently
advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
The one I still think everyone who believed this is stupid.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
The one little like fun tidbit that I do love
is that the illustrations that Elsie copied were from a
popular children's book called Princess Mary's.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Book, and she's really good.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's like an anthology of stories for children with illustrations,
and one of those stories in the anthology book was
by a mister Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Oh my god, he didn't even Recognie. If he had
bought that book, he would have been like, hey, he.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Has his own book. See this is the.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
In the Sherlock version of this. That's how someone would
convince it and be like, you, stupid man, this has
been on your shelf the entire time.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
You never read it because it was for girls.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
It was dumb and for girls so basic.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I mean, what had happened, like we said, was like
these girls wanted to fool their parents. When their parents
weren't fooled, they got mad and they doubled down. And
then this like really rich, famous, impressive man came to
them and they were sixteen and embarrassed and didn't know
what to do, felt like they were in too deep.
And also when the articles come out, people are like
making fun of them, and Elsie and Francis get together

(46:58):
and they decide that they're going to wait until Conan
Doyle and Gardner die before they tell anyone, kay, because
they felt they felt bad. Literally, in the letter that
Elsie wrote to Crawley, she goes I was also feeling
sad for Conan Doyle. We had read in the newspapers
of his getting some jarring comments, first about his interest

(47:21):
in spiritualism, now laughter about his belief in our stories.
He had recently lost his son in the war, and
the poor man was probably trying to comfort himself with
unworldly things. So they just feel bad for him. So
they decide that they're going to wait until they die
before they tell the story. Conan Doyle dies in nineteen
thirty when he's seventy one. Gardner the Theosophist doesn't die

(47:43):
until he's ninety nine years old, literally almost one hundred
until nineteen sixty nine.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
We went to the moon in nineteen sixty nine, but
they don't reveal themselves afterward. They wait another decade.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
They wait. Basically, it's this awkward thing where then and
Elsie wants to confess, and Francis doesn't want to disenchant
her daughter and grant and then granddaughter because they believe
in fairies. But they're giving, and also people kind of
just don't have interest at this point, so they don't
want to, like do some big expose. In nineteen eighty two,
Francis talks privately to this man named Joe Cooper for

(48:19):
a series in The Unexplained, and then without Francis's permission,
he publishes it I Guess the Confession, and then Francis
admits in the Times of London the hoax. But Francis,
who was the younger girl at the time, you were
entirely correct. She maintained until the end of her life
that she did see fairies and actually that the last photo,

(48:42):
that sort of one that you found the most convincing,
that mysterious blurry photo does show real fairies. And she
says that she took it. Well okay, and Elsie, the
older girl, says all of the photos were faked, and
also she took the last photo. And they both might
be right because Crawley, the investigator thinks that one was

(49:04):
a double exposure. They accidentally they just took half a photo.
That was his theory. So I mean. Francis dies in
nineteen eighty six, Elsie dies in nineteen eighty eight. There's
a very charming segment on Antique's Roadshow where Francis's daughter
and granddaughter bring in the original camera and photos and

(49:26):
are like, yep, our mom and grandma believed till the
end of her life that she saw fairies, which is sweet.
The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, which I mentioned,
has the original prints and three cameras and letters and
watercolors sketches of fairies. So if you live near there,
visit it and let us know. I there are a

(49:47):
few takeaways from this that I just want to kind
of point out. First, the thing that we sort of
established is that, like, we think people are dumb in
the past, but they're not. Some people are gullible, some
people aren't always. But the reason that this hoax has
stood to be fair?

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Can I just say, yes, I do believe people were
done in the past. I just also think they're dumb.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
Now that's very fair. Thank you what I mean, thank
you for that clarification. Continue. The reason that this hoax
has like lasted for one hundred years isn't because people
believed it so much, but kind of for the opposite reason.
I think the reason that the Conningly Fairies hoax has
lasted so long is it's because isn't it crazy that
the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes believed this? So that's

(50:31):
that's like why this is a famous hoax. Sure, not
that it's so plausible. So and the other thing that
I do think is a good like reminder for this
episode and just hoaxes in general, is people think of
hoaxes as kind of like mean tricks, but this hoax
only ever was an act of kindness. Like the reason
that Elsie made the fairies in the first place was

(50:54):
because her little cousin was getting in trouble from her mom.
Her mom was mad at her for falling in the stream,
and so she's like, we'll show her, and then they
felt bad for Conan, Doyle and Gardener. They were embarrassed,
so like it was a hoax out of like British
politeness you had brought up before. Benefiting financially, the girls

(51:16):
did not, but the men involved absolutely In a book
in a lecture series, reproductions of the photos were made
for sale at a cost of two shillings sixpence, and
the profits from that sale was divided between three men,
Arthur Conan Doyle, Edward Gardner and Harold Snelling, and apparently,

(51:39):
quote Doyle seems to have stuck out for his rights
to a larger share in any profits, since, as he
pointed out, the exercise really rested on the article in
this strand that's from Crawley's expose.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
He does seem to be the one making this a thing.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
There is zero profit for Elsie and Francis. Allegedly, Doyle
gave them each twenty pounds in bonds, which is not
that much. So not only did Elsie profit, it was
actually actively bad for her. She gets fired from her
job at the card factory because there's always there's too
many calls from interviewers, and also possibly she refused to

(52:19):
let them use one of the photographs on a Christmas card.
And also she loses confidence in her own art because
remember all of these expose as about people arguing whether
these photos are real or not? Is all people being
like and yeah, we've seen her art and it's kind
of shitty, so I wouldn't believe it. She's probably not
capable of it. Like the people defending and believing the hoax,

(52:41):
it rested on her own art being shitty.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
See again, this is why, And I totally understand the
altruistic reasons that they didn't where I'm like, ladies, demand
credit for the thing you're good at, which is making
these photos, like you are good at art.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
She even sort of sassily writes in that nineteen eighty
three letter to Crawley, This large nursing home was built
by the Theosophist Association entirely from the proceeds of money
from copy photos of the Coddingly Fairies booklet, costing half
a million pounds. Francis is a widow, and I expect
she thought it a bit ironical as I sat mending

(53:16):
flaws in cloth in a weaving mill far across the seat,
because she moved to the United States, while at the
same time, mister Gardner, who was a Theosophist, was on
a fully paid tour of the universities all over the
USA telling our fairy story. So even when Elsie kind
of tried to profit, she couldn't. In nineteen seventy two,

(53:37):
she tried to sort of like break the news and
sell her mementos to Sutheby's in London, but they declined
because they only dealt with quote, very ancient documents. So
even when they tried to make some money, they couldn't.
And I paus it to you, then, who is the
real scammer here? Well?

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Did they only ask Suthebys. I feel like Ripley's would
have bought it like there's more than one place that
buys old stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
You really should have advocated for them.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
I just say, like, I feel like I just want
to give them so much advice. Yeah, Okay, who is
the real hoaxter? I guess it was like the society
that turned it from like a prank to into a
hoax by trying to disseminate this as like real information. Yeah,

(54:27):
but I also just don't think that people should lie.
So like that's why I'm slightly less generous towards the girls,
even though they had such nice aims where I'm just like,
but it's a lie.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
It's a lie. But it's like, isn't that what little
girls do to their parents?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yeah, but then when you're not a little girl anymore,
you say, oh, by the way, I made that up?

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Yeah yeah yeah. But then I think they were just
embarrassed and into deep which like imagine if like a famous,
like the most famous acclaimed author you like, told a
lie and then he was like defending you, and who's
like the the equivalent of a sir at the Conan Doyle,
like a popular and also like esteemed author.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
I don't know, I mean, I get being embarrassed imagine
if I was twelve.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Imagine if you made a little prank when you were
twelve and then Anne patch it was like, oh my god, Lizzie,
this is this is brilliant. Thank you for reinforcing my worldview.
I'm going to write a whole book about how right
you are.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
I would be like, someone needs to help and patch it.
I'm also honest to a fault. Like in circles where
I am known, I am known as being rather blunt.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Which is I think is a good thing. I really
relate to being too embarrassed to tell the truth. The
difference I think with us is I very much am
so scared of confrontation that if I did get caught
in a lie, it would be really hard for me
to admit the truth. But that's why I wouldn't lie
in the first place, because the thought of it makes
me really anxious.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Yeah, these days, I only lie for fun.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well that's what they were doing.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Were trying to get out of trouble.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Well, also fun. The older one was definitely also having fun.
She was borrowing her dad's camera. Yeah, drawing fairies. I
mean again, they had no TikTok. What were they supposed
to do? They were drawing fairies on cardboards and sticking
them into the ground with happens. It sounds fun. So, uh, Lizzie,
we you've seen a movie about this. They've made at
least two, one called fairy Tale a True Story starring

(56:23):
Peter O'Toole, and then one called Photographing Fairies with Ben Kingsley.
You presumably saw one of those. Feel like I saw
the first one. When did the First Time come out?
Nineteen ninety seven?

Speaker 2 (56:32):
That sounds right?

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Who would you cast in this movie?

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Okay? Well, in my movie they are sisters, okay, And
we're making Simplify, Simplify five to simplify. And in my movie,
we're making this fifteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Oh it's like it's a modern like and not not
Secret Garden Times.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
No, it is secret. What I'm trying to say is
the Fanning sisters, but I need them to be younger.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Oh that's great, Okay, Like I.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
So I made this movie fifteen years ago. I said
it in Secret Garden Times. I made both the girls young,
and I cast the Fanning sisters.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
I'm casting if we can do young, I'm casting young.
Kristen Dunst as the older sister cute because I think
that era Kirsten Dunst is kind of perfect for this. Yes,
who else You need a gardener and you need an
Arthur Conan Doyle and I need a snelling. I'm doing
a Conan Doyle as Benedic Cumberbatch as a Sherlock nod.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
I feel like Kristin Wigg as Polly.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Yeah, like a little kookie, like she's like, I don't know,
maybe John c Riley is snelling.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Sure, John c Riley is snelling. Kenneth Branna as Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Oh, that's good. That's good.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
And yes, I lifted that from his proro but it worked.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Do you think you would have fallen for this?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
No? But I also I'm scared of conflict in the
way that I don't like to call people out for lying.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
No, you would have been dunking on Conan Doyle on
Twitter maybe, but.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
I would have only if everybody else was doing it too.
Like I never I would never be the person to
be like whistleblower. I would just be like, oh, like
cool pictures, I don't know, you know what I mean? Like,
I would never because if it turns out that it
was real, I would feel so stupid.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
That fairies exist. The world order has been upended.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, no, I mean absolutely correct. You don't want to
be the one person who doesn't realize that fairies aren't real.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Well, thank you so much for listening to our pilot episode.
You should follow me on Instagram at Danish Schwartz with
three z's at the end, and follow the shows Instagram
at Hoax the Podcast. If you have any questions, comments,
photos of you with fairies at this museum with the camera,
you should email Hoax Thepodcast at gmail dot com. Lizzie

(58:47):
where can the people find you?

Speaker 2 (58:48):
They can find me online at l i zz zz
zie l g a n across most, if not all platforms.
Send us your hoaxes, send us your pictures of fairries.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Please, thanks for listening. More hoaxes to come.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Byey Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts
are Danish Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are
Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L.

(59:23):
K Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our
theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.