Theos-Talk Archives (July 2001 Message tt00334)

The story of the Cottingley fairies fraud - in which and with which a 
number of eminent Theosophists, not to mention Sir Athur Conan Doyle were 
variously involved - has been told in a number of scholarly and 
not-so-scholarly works. The final uncovering of the fraud involved both 
patient detective work and (ultimately) sophisticated and relatively 
recent digital photographic technology. Essentially, the fraud consisted 
in placing cut-outs of portrayals of fairies from a childrens book in a 
country setting, and photographing them in the presence of small children 
to represent real photographs of real fairies. This occurred in 1917. 
Conan Doyles "The Coming of the Fairies" (1922) tells the story from a 
True Believer's position, and seriously damaged the author's reputation.