Photographs of Fairies?
Photographs of Fairies? is an article published in the Daily Express on 25 november 1920.
Photographs of Fairies?
STORY OF SNAPSHOTS TAKEN BY TWO CHILDREN.
EXPERTS' VIEWS.
Fairies are real. They do exist actually, and, what is more, have been photographed.
So asserts Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a remarkable article in the number of the "Strand Magazine" published to-day.
The fairy photographs, are reproduced. They were taken, three years ago, near a Yorkshire village by two girls, Iris Carpenter, then aged sixteen, and her cousin, Alice, a child of ten.
One of the photographs shows Alice behind a bedgeside bank, and before her, among the flowers and the bracken, are four dancing fairy figures. They are the traditional fairies of fancy and the storybook — long-haired, gossamer robed, with butterfly wings all complete, just as illustrators have always painted them. One fairy, is playing on a two-reed pipe. Another pivots upon a toadstool.
DANCING GNOMES.
The second, photograph shows a dancing gnome prancing around the knees of Iris. He also is true to type, with puckered, whimsical face, moth wings, and "spikey" feet.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his article says "The pictures stand or fall together. Both are false or both are true. All the circumstances point to the latter alternative."
Several expert professional photographers have been shown the original negatives of the fairy photographs, and have satisfied themselves, Sir Arthur declares, that the plates were not faked.
Mr. E. L. Gardner, of 5, Craven-road, Harlesden, a member of the Theosophical Society, has carried out a complete investigation into the circumstances in which the photographs were obtained, and he is convinced of their genuineness.
FURTHER TESTS.
"Since the article was written," said Mr. Gardner to a "Daily Express" representative yesterday, "we have carried the matter further, and have secured other and still more wonderful photographs of fairies. These second series of photographs were taken by the two girls a few weeks ago under absolute test conditions.
"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I are bringing out a book shortly on the subject of fairy photographs. We shall then submit the full evidence to the public.
"The photographs can only be obtained by the girls themselves working together. Even for them the photographing is a very delicate matter. Nobody else can take the fairies. Curiously enough, the two girls seem to think there is nothing extraordinary about their fairy photographs. They regard the whole thing as a matter of course, for they say they have known and seen the fairies all their lives."
