Creatures, Myths & Legends

Scientists analyze cameras used to capture the Cottingley Fairies

By T.K. Randall
July 29, 2024 ·  19 comments

One of the original images of the Cottingley Fairies. Image Credit: Leeds University Library / Elsie Wright Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths - two young cousins who would often play next to a stream at the bottom of their garden - repeatedly claimed that they had seen fairies there.

To prove it, Elsie borrowed her father's camera and the girls set about capturing some photographs.

To everyone's surprise, the pair had managed to produce a set of very convincing (for the time) images showing what appeared to be actual fairies, often with one of the girls sitting beside them.

The images were so convincing, in fact, that they quickly went public and became headline news.

Many believed the fairies to be real, including author and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who included the photos in a magazine article he'd written.

The mystery of the Cottingley fairies would go on to endure for over 60 years until finally, in 1983, the two cousins admitted that the photographs had been faked using cut-out illustrations from a book.Both, however, remained adamant that they had genuinely seen fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Now, more than 100 years after the photographs were taken, scientists have conducted a new analysis of the cameras that the girls had used to take them.

The research involved using brand new state-of-the-art CT scanners capable of imaging detail down to just seven microns - the equivalent of the width of a strand of spider silk.

Despite the high level of detail, however, nothing unusual could be found.

"Of course, we didn't find any fairies but I think we did find a little bit of magic - in that these scanners show how we can now look inside objects without disturbing them and see a level of detail that is unsurpassed," said Professor Andrew Wilson of the University of Bradford.

"Through scanning these objects, we can show the inner workings of how analogue photography works - and the materials which go into making a camera."

"It's really exciting to be able to see new details inside our objects using the cutting-edge facilities next door to us at the University of Bradford."

Source: Mail Online | Comments (19)

Tags: Cottingley, Fairies