This is a real photograph of what many believed to be real fairies. Now, this is the true story of the Cottingley Fairies. Summer of 1917, you’ve got these two girls in Cottingley, Yorkshire, England. Beautiful countryside, super small town. Now, they were cousins. Got Elsie Wright, who is 16, and then Francis Griffith, who is 9. Now, they would often play together in the surrounding fields, but also this river just behind their house. But one day they’re back there playing and out comes some fairies. Talking fairies like you’ve seen in the fairy tales. Glowing. They’ve got wings of these beautiful dancing people. They come out from the grass and start playing with the girls. Well, they’re absolutely thrilled. So they run home during tea time and they’re telling their parents, guys, listen, we were just out back playing with some fairies. And the parents like, oh, wow, tell us about that. Completely entertaining. At this point, the dad decides to grab his old camera, say, hey, girls, watch you take some photos of the fairies too. Really, it was just to entertain them and give them another hobby to do. It wasn’t because he actually thought they were seeing fairies. So the girls take the camera down to the river and they start snapping some photos of the fairies. They come back at tea time and go, here’s your camera, we got some photos of the fairy. Well, eventually, the dad goes and develops the photos, but To his surprise, he sees this photo, and, yes, this is the real photo. He’s completely shocked because in this photo, he sees the fairies playing with his daughter, just like they said. So he shows his wife and she’s completely shocked by this. She then takes the photo, goes all around town, telling all her friends that her daughter saw a fairy. Now the town’s talking because they equally believe this. Next, she decides to bring it to the Theosophical Society, shows them the photo and says, listen, there’s fairies in this town. I’ve got visual proof. Check this out. Now, keep in mind this group is already inclined to believe in spiritual and mystical creatures. They completely eat this up. By this time, it starts getting traction outside of town, gets so much attention that the author of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, big time author, sends a letter to the girls saying, listen, I believe you. This is absolutely real. Can you get some more photos for me? The girls go, absolutely. And they go and they snap some more photos of the fairies. Well, in 1920, three years after the photos were taken, it gets posted in the Strand Magazine. But that was mainly because Arthur Conan Doyle was really backing it, so they were super interested in this. It’s worth noting that he was also really into spiritual things too. By this point, the story is massive. It’s also worth noting that photo hoaxes weren’t Really a thing. Back then, what you saw in a photograph was pretty much gospel. So it is fair that the public did buy into this. This went on for over 60 years. Now, I found this interview with Elsie Wright from 1976. In this interview, she does confirm that she did see these fairies. She even explains what they looked like. But the thing that stood out to me was she said this, and they said, because I was quite good drawing and painting in school, and I’d been to the art school, people said I must have drawn and painted them myself and cut them out and put them in the grass. But then continued on the interview saying, yeah, I saw them. Like, believe what you want. But only a few years later, in 1983, did Elsie and Francis finally come forward and say, listen, this was a hoax. But we also want to say that we really did see fairies. At this point, everyone’s like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. Tell us what this hoax. They said, look, we were just playing down by this river, me and my cousin, and we thought it would be fun to take these illustrations from Princess Mary’s gift book of these characters dancing. And then, since Elsie was a good artist, she drew wings on them and then cut them out. They then used hat pins to hold them in place and then snap the photos. Literally, almost word For word, what she said in 1976. It’s almost like she wanted to come out and say it. Drawn and painted them myself and cut them out and put them in. In the grass. Then they asked them, what? Why did you do this? Why did you carry it on for 70 years? And they basically said, listen. When it got to the point that it went to the Theosophical Society, they brought us on stage, they gave us flowers for talking there. And at that point, they really started to feel guilty. But where they realized there was no turning back was when Arthur Conan Doyle came on board. They felt he was such a big name for the time. He was a is. He wrote Sherlock Holmes. They didn’t want to embarrass the guy. So at that point, they vowed to keep it a secret. So for over 70 years, these photos circulated, convincing people that fairies were real. But what’s shocking is to this day, people will still believe everything they see online. So I gotta ask, do you believe in fairies