C (2:39)

If I'm smart enough to be charging my phone in the other room, I'll get through 50 pages and Matt the thing is, you have, and I don't know if anyone's noticed, you have a British accent, which you can just lie to people and have read everything. Because in America, that, to us implies that you're incredibly erudite and well read and probably went to Oxford.

A (3:01)

Yeah, very, very true. Actually, Dana, thank you for noticing. I have read everything.

B (3:05)

Everything ever.

A (3:07)

Yeah, I did go to Oxford. Not the university. There's a nice cafe around there.

B (3:18)

I went to Columbia, but I went to Columbia in Chicago. But whenever I want to feel smart, I'll. I went to Columbia.

A (3:25)

I'm still impressed by that either way.

C (3:27)

Me too.

B (3:28)

You know, I've heard you two are the top poetry readers in all of the uk And, Dana, you don't even live there. That's what I've heard. I'm not going to say where I've heard it, but I've heard it in the pillow. For it. There are no lies.

A (3:45)

So tonight, Dana, I don't know if you've heard this before, we play a game sort of called Drowsy History. One of the reasons it's so exciting to have you on tonight is because it's not often we have someone who's into history but also knows a lot about it. So I wondered if tonight you might be up for telling us a story and giving us a bit of a lesson.

C (4:17)

I would love to. I hope I get details right. If I get anything wrong, I will be slightly embarrassed, but I'm gonna try my best.

A (4:24)

Hey, like Jacques said, there's no lies here.

B (4:26)

No lies in the pillow fork.

C (4:27)

No lies in the pillow fork.

B (4:28)

No lies in a pillow fork.

C (4:30)

I host a podcast called Hoax, where I go through some of my favorite historical hoaxes. And this is an example of one of them, one of my favorite historical hoaxes of all time. I love it. And it starts in the summer of 1917. Two cousins are living close by near Bradford in England, a town called Cottingley. And they're two little cousins. One is named Elsie and one is named Frances. Elsie is a teenager. Frances is younger, maybe like nine years old. They're very close. These girls are playing together all the time. And one day, these two girls are out playing by the stream behind their house, and they come back with all their clothes wet. And Frances mother is really mad at these girls for falling in the stream, for getting their clothes dirty and muddy and wet. And Frances, this little girl says, it's not my fault we were playing with the fairies. Her mother, of course, doesn't believe her. That's exactly the type of thing a nine year old girl would say when she doesn't want to get in trouble. But Elsie, the older cousin, says, well, we'll show the grownups. We'll get proof of the fairies. It really wasn't our fault. And so the older girl, Elsie, borrows her father's, came and takes a photo of her younger cousin Frances, surrounded by fairies who are about, I don't know, like 4 to 6 inches high. And they look like fairies in a children's book. You know, some are playing like a fife and they have these big, like butterfly wings and they're just sort of dancing around. And they also take a picture of Elsie with like an imp, kind of like an ugly male fairy.

B (6:10)

Okay.

C (6:10)

And they show these photos to their parents and they, the parents don't really believe that these are real photos of fairies, but are still impressed by the girls. They're like, wow, these are pretty interesting. It must be a prank. How did you do it? You know, how did you tamper with my camera? Their father actually is like, you can't borrow my camera again. I'm sure you're messing with it in some way. Everyone sort of forgets about it for two years. When Elsie's mother is part of a religious movement called the Theosophical Society. And it's not quite a religious movement, but it's sort of akin to spiritualism. People who believe in ghosts and a connection to the afterlife. And at this meeting nearby, the mother mentions like, well, my girls had actually captured photos of fairies. You know, I don't understand it, but this is the situation. And a pretty high up member of the Theosophical Society hears about this and gets excited and wants to see these photographs immediately. His name is Edward Gardner. He sends them to a photographic expert who looks at them and is like, I don't think these photos were messed with. It doesn't look like pseudo Photoshop, which is what you could have done back then, is a double exposure, which is taking two photographs on the same plate. So if you, you could superimpose a photo of a fairy, you know, on a photo of a girl, I'll get you.

A (7:41)

But even then, you've got to find a fairy to, to put that on.

C (7:45)

Exactly. You'd have to find a fairy, which is tough. But he looks at the photos and says, these don't look like double exposures. It doesn't look like they were doctored after the fact, you know, like cutting out a picture of a fairy and sort of just pasting it on the photo. And so Gardner, who's this spiritualist, gets very, very excited because these photos of fairies prove everything that he believed about the world.

A (8:09)

Yeah, everything's on the table then, isn't it?

C (8:11)

Yeah.

B (8:12)

Krampus is real.

C (8:13)

You know, there's a world we can't understand or can't see.

B (8:15)

Exactly, exactly.

C (8:17)

And they think only children can see and capture fairies, obviously, which is why.

B (8:23)

The tooth fairy only comes to kids. If I lose a tooth now, I don't get no money.

C (8:28)

And also, people point out that these fairies look a lot like storybook fairies. And they say, isn't it strange that real fairies look exactly like we imagined real fairies to look?

A (8:43)

Good point.

C (8:43)

And the spiritualists have a pretty good answer to this, if you believe this sort of thing, which is they have two theories. First, maybe people just got fairies, right? Maybe they described them in picture books and storybooks and they actually knew what they looked like. And maybe the reason that these fairies have sort of modern hairstyles and modern clothes is because they're thought forms that somehow the appearance of them is linked to the imagination of these two girls, which just reinforces this idea that if you want to believe something is true, you can find an explanation.

A (9:24)

Yeah, it's quite a gymnastic leap around that, isn't it?

C (9:28)

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, once you believe fairies are real, you can make any sort of leaps you want.

B (9:33)

Absolutely.

C (9:34)

And the other sort of defense of these photographs is, well, how would two young girls fool photographic experts? Because, again, people are looking at these photos and they're saying, well, they don't look tampered with. And, you know, these are just two young girls, so what could they do that experts couldn't? It's not like they could fool adult men. And then this story gets another very exciting wrinkle when a man gets word of these photographs, and this man is named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Oh, I don't know if you're familiar with this man.

A (10:12)

Yes, he was my dad.

C (10:13)

Yeah, congratulations. Yeah, he was a Scottish author, very famous particularly for writing the stories of the detective Sherlock Holmes. And if you know the Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock Holmes is a very rational, reasonable, very intelligent man. And the man who wrote him is also a very intelligent man. He's a physician, but he was also a spiritualist, very interested in psychic and paranormal phenomenon. And so Arthur Conan Doyle sees these photographs and he's thrilled. He and Gardner, this other man who had sort of discovered these photos, both get expert opinions. Conan Doyle goes to Kodak, the company, and they examine the plates and they can't find evidence of trickery. But they also say that we're not going to say that this is proof of fairies.

B (11:09)

I love that they got everybody. This got up to Kodak, which at that point. That's like getting to the Supreme Court of pictures.

A (11:18)

Yeah.

C (11:20)

Of course. Doyle also goes to a clairvoyant, which I find very funny. And what I find very funny is this clairvoyant says, I think these photos. I'm getting this image of an older man, you know, a short man, actually took these photos with hair brushed back. And I see a studio with lots of cameras. So this clairvoyant is sort of saying, maybe they're fake. But both Gardner and Conan Doyle say, well, great news. What you're. What this clairvoyant saw was just the first man who sort of blew up these photos and examined them. So clearly that's what you're picking up on, of course.

A (11:57)

Yeah, that'll be it.

B (11:58)

Yeah.

C (11:59)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes an article in 1920 in the Strand magazine, which is a very big deal. The Strand actually published Sherlock Holmes stories. This was a really widely read magazine. And in their Christmas edition, he publishes this big article saying fairies photographed. Really laying his reputation on the line.

B (12:21)

Wow.

C (12:22)

And in this article he does take a fairly even handed approach. He says, like he's not bullish. He says, like this is the evidence. He also says, quite insultingly, if they claim that Elsie, one of the girls, had just drawn the fairies, he says, well, I examined her artwork and it actually wasn't that good, so she wouldn't be capable of this.

B (12:45)

She wasn't a good drawer. She sucked.

C (12:49)

A lot of this proof came down to the fact that Arthur Conan Doyle says, in this tiny village, two young girls, two young amateurs who had never touched a camera before, wouldn't have had the skill to make a fake. That would fool the best experts.

A (13:08)

But that's the thing as well. I've got the Elsie Wright with a friendly neighbourhood gnome. And although it's our level with everybody right now, I don't believe in fairies. It's not a terrible job, is it? Like the fairy fits in. It's not like a real. You would expect at that time any sort of photo trickery to pre. Quite rudimentary and a bit obvious, but it fits pretty well. I'd believe that if I was in 1970.

C (13:36)

And again, by the time he publishes These photos, it's 1920. Photos are still incredibly rudimentary in the sense that people aren't familiar with how they look and how things are reflected in photos. And I think people are also akin to want to frame people in the past as very stupid and say, well, I never would have fallen for this. And there were, to be very clear, people who are embarrassed and puzzled by Arthur Conan Doyle when he publishes these articles. People call Arthur Conan Doyle crazy. They think he's fooled. Even if no one can actually prove how these girls faked these photos, the general consensus in the media is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was tricked.

B (14:25)

He got.

C (14:25)

Got some writer in. When he publishes a rebuttal ends, knowing children and knowing that Conan Doyle has legs, I imagine that, you know, these children have pulled one of them.

A (14:40)

Which.

C (14:41)

Is a pretty good burn.

B (14:42)

That's a good burn. That's a good burn.

C (14:45)

And the two young cousins, Elsie and Frances, they just keep their mouths shut. I think, to be fair, it's sort of. They get fed up with this whole thing. But imagine. Yeah, imagine, though, if the most famous, respected author in the country makes such a big deal of this. I think they didn't want to embarrass Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because not only did he write multiple articles for the Strand, he also published an entire book with evidence for these fairy photographs.

A (15:17)

Oh, God, that's tough.

B (15:18)

See, that's rough.

C (15:19)

That's rough.

B (15:20)

When you come and you do something that you're like, we got him, but you want to drop the hoax, but then somebody picks it up, you get mad like, oh, God dang it, we got to keep this going.

C (15:35)

Someone who they really respected and someone who was famous and acclaimed and gave them attention, and I almost feel a little sorry for them. I think it got a little bigger than they anticipated. I think they meant this as a prank on their parents. And in my imagination, if when they had first showed these pictures to their parents, their parents had gone, oh, my God, fairies are real. Their initial response would have been like, nope, we tricked you. But it was the fact that their parents kind of didn't believe them and just brushed them off, that they just sort of doubled down and decided not to tell anyone how they did it.

A (16:12)

Yeah.

C (16:13)

It's not until the 80s that a British photographic journal did sort of a full investigation. He's like, I'm gonna start from absolute scratch and prove that these photos were faked. And he does. He figures out that the way they faked these photos is actually very, very simple. They cut out photos of fairies from a book, drew on them, adjusted them a little, and used hat pins just to stick them in the ground around them, and then took the photos. And so it's not that they manipulated the photos after the fact, they just staged the scene with fake fairies in them.

B (16:57)

I mean, I was looking at the pictures and I wanted to wait until you revealed this, but I was like, but we have the privilege of knowledge now, and we've seen the advancement of photography and art and things like that, but as soon as I looked at it, I was like, these are toys. Yeah, they looked like toys. They looked like they were there. So, yeah, no manipulation. But I thought they were toys, so.

C (17:24)

That makes sense, but exactly right. You know, and I think one of the big ironies is that the book that they cut those fairy photos out of, or, you know, drawings out of and added wings to was an anthology for kids, and it had a story by none other than Arthur Conan Doyle.

B (17:43)

Dang. He got got by a story.

C (17:44)

Feels like straight out of Sherlock Holme.

B (17:46)

He got got by his own hand.

A (17:49)

Oh, that's great.

C (17:50)

After Crawley publishes all of these, Elsie, one of the girls, writes him this very long letter and she's 80 years old, and she writes him basically to thank him for how much depth and care he took in his, I will say, takedown. But he does it with so much sympathy and kindness. It's very gentle. He's not accusing these girls of anything.

B (18:12)

Yeah.

C (18:13)

And. And she confesses exactly how they did it and says it was just a practical joke that fell flat. Our parents, if they had believed us, we would have confessed then and there, but it just got out of hand. And then we were so embarrassed on behalf of Arthur Conan Doyle that she and her cousin had made an arrangement that they wouldn't confess until after both Arthur Conan Doyle and Edward Gardner died. And, of course, Gardner lived until he was like, 90 or 100 or something. Crazy.

A (18:44)

Yeah.

C (18:45)

And so they just sort of kept it going.

B (18:47)

They kept it going. That's so funny. They were so grateful. Like we've been lying for 65 years.

C (18:53)

Yeah.

B (18:54)

Thank you so much for giving us the chance to tell the truth finally.

A (18:57)

It's incredible they had the restraint to not say anything.

C (19:01)

The younger one actually does say, we did see fairies, but the photos were faked. Still keeping the lie up, still keeping the lie alive. But the older cousin confessed. We saw the fairies. And to be honest, I think my theory is she was so young, maybe she. Sometimes you kind of. Your memory believes stories that you were told. And if you were a kid who was told, we saw fairies enough times, maybe she believed it. But, yeah, it took decades for this hoax to actually be revealed. Some of the most famous photographs In.

B (19:38)

That's so funny.

C (19:39)

The photos, the two girls that fooled the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes.

B (19:43)

I love it. Turns out he was a terrible detective.

C (19:47)

Not a very good detective.

B (19:48)

Not a good detective himself.

C (19:50)

I feel like Sherlock Holmes. You can almost see the reveal that he would have found the book.

A (19:55)

Yeah.

B (19:56)

Yeah, he would. He would have been. I need to read. I'm gonna read my own works. Wait a minute. That's that same fairy I saw in that picture.

C (20:06)

It's the exact same fairy. What a coincidence.

A (20:09)

That is amazing. I had no idea something like that happened in Bradford either. Such an unlikely place for a story about fairies. Well, that's the only unanswered question now, isn't it? How did they fall in the stream if it wasn't for the fairies? What did happen there?

B (20:25)

They tripped.

A (20:27)

Less impressive. Well, thank you very much for that, Dana. That was so, so enjoyable.

B (20:34)

That was great.

A (20:35)

Is there anything that our listeners should be checking out that you've been working on recently?

C (20:40)

Yes. If you're a fan of podcasts and or the sound of my voice, please listen to Noble Blood and the Podcast Hoax, exclamation point. I also have a new book coming out in May that's available for pre order now. It's called the Arcane Arts. It's a sexy, magic, dark academia book at a university. So if any of those words or phrases sound appealing to you, please check it out.

A (21:08)

Before you do turn in and we lose you, we like to ask our guests to give a special goodnight. So you sort of set the scene, get comfy, and you can say goodnight to a friend, a loved one, the world, whatever feels right to you.

C (21:25)

I will say good night to all the people out there, young and old, who are creative, people who believe in fairies, people who try to make other people believe in fairies. Anyone cozy in their bed? Sleep well. Good night. Don't let the fairies bite.

B (21:45)

I love that. Definitely. Good night to all the creators out there. We'll talk to you next time. And until then, good night, Dana. Good night, Matt.

C (21:53)

Good night.

A (22:20)

Sa. Foreign. To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.