The Cottingley Fairies are a wonderfully whimsical creation made in 1917 by 2 young girls, Elsie and Frances. Perhaps one of the earliest instances of “photoshopping”, the 5 photographs show fairies dancing and flying about the girls in the English countryside.
Elsie’s father was a photographer with his own darkroom, so she had access to state-of-the-art technology to create these images. She also had the urge to prank her parents by “proving” to them that fairies were real. While her dad wasn’t fooled, her mother was persuaded and eventually shared the images with the public.
The photos were so convincing that many people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, believed the creatures were real. Not everyone was fooled, though, and the fairies were revealed to be a hoax in the 1980s.
Hoax though they may be, the Cottingley Fairies are still a marvel to behold today — and to think Elsie was only 16 and Frances was 9 at the time!