The Story of the Cottingley Fairies Hoax

I used to see fairies, gnomes and nature spirits as a kid. I believed in it 100%, after all seeing is believing, right? Then as I grew up i started to see ghosts, demons and ugly things. A spiritualist relative paraded me around to all her spiritualist friends for years, convincing me that not being able to sleep and dissociating 24hrs a day, barely being able to function in reality, was just the consequences of my "gift". Turns out I'm schizophrenic. I've been taking antipsychotics since i was 17 and this relative has refused to talk to me ever since, claiming my family was "killing a beautiful thing". It wasn't beautiful, it was terrifying and the worst years of my life, but yeah she still thinks I should just abandon my medication and let myself go crazy to feed her expectations. These things can and do go wrong frequently.

when I was in first grade a girl who went to my church literally convinced me and a bunch of other girls that we WERE fairies and had to run away together to go to fairyland, i literally wrote a goodbye letter to my parents explaining everything lmfaooo

Could you just imagine how the algorythms would have rot Arthur Conan Doyle's mind if he had access to social media back then.

You claim fairies aren’t real yet there’s a gorgeously dressed one right in the first frame, curious

Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini having a falling-out over the existence of fairies is the exact kind of thing I come to this channel for (and Kaz's outfits✨)

I remember reading that Doyle never wanted to be remembered as the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes, but I wonder if being known for being trolled by two little girls is any better lmao

Photo expert: "You see these photos are real. See this blurring? That means the fairies were moving when the photo was taken." Conan Doyle: gasp Little girl: "Bruh that's just the paper moving in the wind"

We had a similar hoax in Mexico recently where a guy said he had a corpse of a fairy in a jar. People would line up around the block to pay to see it. Turns out it was just a tiny doll of the X-men character Pixie dipped in formaldehyde. It would be a pretty funny resolution except for the fact that he was killed shortly after.

It shocked me learning that Elsie Wright was such a talented artist and people usually just glosses over it. That woman entered art school being 13, then worked in a photo lab and made hand painted cards. Can you imagine being good at watercolours and analog photography of the time at 16 y/o only for people to remember you for a joke you made when you were a little girl? I would get out of the grave just to slap someone. Also, loved this video <3

I love that in the end when they finally confessed and explained they were just having a little fun but these grown men took it so seriously, they stop short and say "well except for that last one- that one was real..." They were still screwin' with us! All the way to the end, still getting grown men to question reality. My heroes

If I had a nickel for every time a British author of a worldwide popular book series developed an irrational obsession that tarnished their reputation and alienated people I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice. 🕵️🧚‍♀️🧙‍♂️🏳️‍⚧️

Arthur Conan Doyle showing up where people least expect him in history is my favorite thing. He basically launched his writing career by making up a fake account of what happened to the Mary Celeste which is why we still talk about that particular ghost ship today (and why people think it was spelled Marie Celeste).

I just love that they were so sensitive about these peoples' grief that they waited until the parties concerned had died

Harry Houdini and his wife had a secret code word or phrase to be used after one's death if it somehow turned out medium calling on spirits was actually real. Those two were dedicated skeptics even after death

The funny thing is that anyone who knows anything about art who looks at the pictures can instantly tell that they are two dimensional drawings. people who were fooled clearly were so desperate to see proof of fairy existence that any kind of image would have had the same effect.

this whole situation is like the most extreme version of when someone says something crazy with a striaght face as a joke, and when someon asks if theyr'e joking they double down to keep the joke going

Kaz blessing us once again. Ah, Arthur C. Doyle. What a life. Can't believe he was friends with Houdini. Houdini: "My mother never learned English." Doyle's wife: "Are you sure about that?"

I loved Fairy Tale as a kid. My favorite part wasn't about the fairies but the side plot where the girls make friends with the disfigured soldier. It taught me a a young child that just because someone looks frightening, does not make them a bad person.

My dad always asks people for their fairy/folk stories whenever we travel. A hotel employee in London said there were fairies in the park across the street and several people in Iceland told us their believed in trolls, or at least their grandma did and they loved her stories about them.

My grandmother, born in 1902, was a lifelong theosophist and often left votive offerings for the fairies in our garden. Usually beer. Perhaps it was used as a slug bait and not for the fairies at all. Then again we were Germans in Texas, and I don't recall what happened to all the rest of the six-pack of Shiner beer.