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The ‘Baron’ of Arizona and Other Historic Hucksters

Khalid Elhassan October 31, 2019 27 min

2. The Cottingley Fairy Hoax Takes Wing

Two years after cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffith photographed “fairies”, the images started going viral after Frances’ mother showed them at a meeting of the Theosophical Society – A New Age spiritualist group. The photos were clearly questionable, and experts who saw them pronounced them crude cardboard cutouts. However, the existence of Fairies dovetailed with some religious tenets of the Theosophical Society, so its members – who included prominent British figures – began spreading the photos and vouching for their authenticity.

In 1920, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became aware of the photos. Like his famous detective, Doyle was initially skeptical about the fairy images, and went so far as to ask camera and film manufacturers Eastman Kodak for their opinion. However, before receiving a reply, and for reasons unknown other than a sheer desire to believe, Doyle concluded that the photos were real. Before long, Sherlock Holmes’ author was vouching for the photos’ authenticity, en route to becoming a huge advocate for the existence of fairies in real life.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.