The Cottingley Fairy Hoax

Or: how two teenage girls fooled the world entirely for the vibes

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Confirmation bias is the instinct we all have to believe, which confirms what we already thought to be true: The world is flat, wine and cheese are the secrets to a long life, or third-born children are inherently more intelligent, for instance. 

This is the flip side and the foundation for the 21st-century conversation surrounding fake news and its impact: If we inherently trust news sources that confirm what we already suspect, the next step is to inherently mistrust any source that offers a counter-narrative. Information is now disseminated in many formats, all available 24 hours a day, which often makes the truth challenging to discern from lies. However, the issue of fake news didn't begin with the 21st-century American presidential elections; it's as old as mass media itself.

Elsie Wright being offered a posy by a fairy (photography by Frances Griffiths)

In 1920, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published an article in Strand magazine that included, at face value, two photographs of young English girls posed with what he (and they) claimed were real fairies. To a modern eye, the pictures seem obviously faked — pretty cutouts propped up near the human models. Even at the time, many were skeptical of the veracity of the images. 

The photos were scrutinized by experts, and the photographers, Elsie Wright (aged 16) and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths, were interviewed repeatedly by a series of men alternately eager to believe and to debunk them. Gender bias and sexism meant that the girls were simultaneously dismissed, admired, and demonized by the public. If the fairies were real, they appeared to Elsie and Frances because the girls were so simple; the fairies must be real because two small-town girls couldn't be clever enough to fake it; or the girls, like all of their gender, were lying to get attention.

Like today's viral memes, the photos were taken and distributed at the only time they could have possibly become an international controversy. The nascent art of photography meant the experts of the time were still relatively green. The speed with which new technology shaped the world left people longing for a simpler time yet quicker to accept magic, and in a world still scarred by World War I, many were eager for a lighthearted diversion. The girls never sought out fame for the photos, and perhaps this sincerity was part of their appeal. They avoided the press as much as they could but held steadfast to the integrity of the images until finally coming clean in a 1983 interview.

The girls' actions certainly don't indicate that they continued the hoax out of a desire for attention; they didn't instigate any follow-up reports on their activities and only agreed to interviews when they became unavoidable. Perhaps they held fast to their story out of compassion, knowing that revealing the lie would humiliate the many adults who had come to their defence, unwilling to disappoint those who continued to believe.

After the controversy, the girls ceased sharing any further fairy stories or photographs, leading Doyle to presume that, like Peter Pan's Wendy Darling, the mere act of growing up had left the girls unable to see (or photograph) any more fairies.

Because that's another crucial part of this story: childhood, innocence, and what is lost as we grow up. Confirmation bias manifests in children in the guise of black-and-white thinking, an absolute belief that things can be good or bad but never in between. 

The fairy photos forced those who encountered them to tap into deeply held personal beliefs that informed how they consumed the images. Those already predisposed to believe in the paranormal-especially with Doyle's support-accepted the images without question. Similarly, those who thought unquestioningly that fairies weren't real could find no other response than to declare the photos fake. 

This scenario still happens today: Readers bring their own bias to each news story they engage with, finding it easier to dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview while latching on to those that do. In this way, the Cottingley Fairy Hoax may have instigated a century-long conversation about fake news in which we're still engaged.

At a crucial junction in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, which was popular as a play and a novel at the time of the hoax, the audience is implored to clap if they believe in fairies. Theatres to this day are filled with rapturous applause at this point, the pure faith of a crowd strong enough to bring Tinker Bell back to life. Frances and Elsie brought this same question — “Do you believe in fairies?” — to an international stage, and the truth itself was never quite the same again.

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VULGAR HISTORY A LA CARTE is the companion publication to the Vulgar History podcast. Click here to hear the latest episode of the podcast.

Ann Foster is a a writer and podcaster. She’s currently writing a nonfiction biography of Caroline of Brunswick. Don’t know who that is? You will soon! She’s represented by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis Literary Management.

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A previous version of this piece appeared in Bitch magazine no. 76 in 2017.