Sidebar: The Cottingley Fairies
Below are pictures taken in 1917 by cousins
Elsie Write and Frances Griffiths
with descriptions from Wikipedia (Wiki)1 and Donald E.
Simanek (DES).2 In later interviews the cousins acknowledged
the pictures had been faked; though Elsie maintained the last one was
real. The 1997 movie Fairytale: A True Story is based on the
account of the Cottingley Fairies
DES: Frances and the Fairies, July 1917, taken by Elsie. Midg Quarter camera at 4 feet, 1/50 sec., sunny day.
Wiki: The first of the five photographs, taken by Elsie Wright in 1917,
shows Frances Griffiths with the alleged fairies.
Photo 2
DES: Photo No. 2, taken in September, showed Elsie sitting on the lawn
reaching out her hand to a friendly gnome (about a foot high, with
wings) who is stepping forward onto the hem of her wide skirt.
Wiki: The second of the five photographs, showing Elsie with a winged
gnome
DES: Photo No. 3 "Francis and the Leaping Fairy" showed a slightly blurred profile of Frances with the winged fairy suspended in mid-air just in front of her nose. The background and the fairy are not blurred. Hmmm...
Wiki: Frances and the Leaping Fairy, the third photograph
DES: Photo No. 4 shows a fairy hovering in mid-air offering a flower to Elsie. Well, this fairy may be standing on a branch, for the fairy images are of indeterminable distance from the camera.
Wiki: The fourth photograph, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie
DES: Photo No. 5 "Fairies and their Sunbath" is the only one that looks as if it could have been an accidental or deliberate double exposure.
Wiki: Fairies and Their Sun-Bath, the fifth and last photograph of the Cottingley Fairies
1
Referenced from Wikipedia: The
Free Encyclopedia, 8/8/2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
2 Referenced from Donald E. Simanek, Arthur Conan Doyle, Spiritualism, and Fairies, 8/8/2015
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/doyle.htm