The December, 1920, issue of The Strand Magazine had its cover emblazoned with the title of a sensational article, “Fairies Photographed – An Epoch Making Event Described by A. Conan Doyle.” Arthur Conan Doyle was the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Above is one of the photos that Doyle presented as documenting the existence of fairies. In that article, Doyle declared:
These little folk who appear to be our neighbours, with only some small difference of vibration to separate us, will become familiar. The thought of them, even when unseen, will add a charm to every brook and valley and give romantic interest to every country walk. The recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life.
The fairies came to be called the Cottingley Fairies. In 1922, Doyle wrote a book, The Coming of the Fairies, providing further evidence of their existence and a “theosophic view of fairies.”
In our age of powerful photo editing software, no one would find in the above photo any glamour and mystery. That’s not a loss to the wonder of life.