My own personal take on this wonderful story is that people at the time were willing to believe in it as an escape from the massive trauma of the great war .

Elsie's father thought highly of Conan Doyle at one stage, but when when CD went on and on about the fairies, Mr Wright would shake his head and wonder how such an intelligent man could be manipulated by 'our Elsie, and her at the bottom of the class'.
When I was 15, I used to read to my great grandmother who was bed-ridden and she loved unexplained mysteries.  So I read her the Cottingley Fairies and showed her the pics.  The first thing she said was 'Why don't the fairies look at the camera?  Why do we only see them side on?'  I'm 58 now and I always remember that.

27:36 family of Elsie says she says this was the only real photo - see them on antiques road show.

So interesting.
Such beautiful photos and for two girls of their age amazing placement and artistic vision.
Such a shame it went too far for them to take credit for it but, I assume it would be difficult to do that in their time.

My favourite photograph series. 💜

Could you please also look into the Ariel School UFO Landings, which seem to have quite powerful parallels to this incident (minus photography)?

I'm was very young at the time around six of nine year old and I read this article or story about true fairies using this picture, that the start of me believing to the supernatural .

In a moment the instinctual reaction instantly screams that they look like cardboard cut outs of some kind of Disney like cartoon characters, very one dimensional and I can't see how anyone would think this was real unless they wanted to believe it enough that they could bypass their rational thinking..

fairies, like beauty, ...and dragons, elves, menehunes, leprachauns, Angels! are ALL very real..AND in the eye of the Beholder..just as reality is. We keep forgetting that we each create our own reality..and Collectively this manifests as the world we "SEE" around us.

Pity that the audio track doesn't always match with the image being shown! (For example talking about the first photo while showing the second one.)

The one with the gnome blows me away. They’re inter-dimensional beings. They captured them, this was never debunked. They didn’t want all the attention and hullabaloo. The fairy bower photo was real, she took it not even seeing it until the plate was developed.

This is similar to modern UFO/UAE videos. How easily it is that experts can be fooled

BTW How can a 9 year old in 1917 be born in 1901? More like 1898 one would think. Leeds University eh? You also mix up Elsie and Frances' names too often

The photos here are enhanced, sharper, not exactly as the girl made them. And these were kids trying to pull one over on their family. They had no idea how out of hand it would get.

I agree they are stunning photos. To do that with a manual photographic film camera requires genuine skill, I speak from experience. But by today's discernment levels, they do look fake. Mostly because there is no real-world shading on the "fairies", they are completely flat.

There was a book I read,long time ago. It told about those same photos. But the  concept of ' fairies', is not part of American folklore. So it sounded ridiculous from the get go. But the photos do look well made for a bunch of children. 🤔🤔

I cant debate the Cottingley Fairies but I will say as God is my witness,,when I was 5 years old,at Easter time I was standing on our front porch when all of a sudden a large rabbit appeared and hopped up on the porch walking on his hind legs. His fur was light grey and he was about 4 feet tall, wore black shiny shoes,his feet covered in white tight 17th century stocking's and his jacket had dress tails in the jacket which was light blue with a crochet bib and he held over his right arm (paw) a little woven basket lined with a cloth holding coloured eggs. He hopped on past me and passed on into the house out of my sight. I screamed for mother who came rushing and then did a deep search of the house .She found nothing. I never saw him again but I believe in fairies just like most of the people in Iceland do who have protected area for save living terrain for them to dwell safely from human traffic.

It's strange that he didn't comment about the fact that one of the girls/ladies in her last days is supposed to have said that one particular photo was not a fake ??

Oh I really wish u could have just let it be.  We need fun things to believe in....

Most conspiracy theories though are true. The "Globe" isn't.