1976: COTTINGLEY FAIRIES: FACT or FANTASY? | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

Nationwide explores the mystery of the Cottingley Fairies with the woman who sparked it all, Elsie Wright. Sixty years after her and her cousin's 'encounter' with fairies and gnomes, Martin Young poses the question: hoax or enchanting mystery?
Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, Thursday 25 November, 1976.
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[@chickenminute8195]

I loved this as a kid in the 80s. I remember collecting the little cards inside the packets of PG tips with different mysteries, Crystal skulls, Indian rope trick etc. This was on one of them. I completed the whole album, you had to send off for it. As a child, this story was great. Those photos still look great even after 100 years.

[@UpTheAnte1987]

The shroud of Turin, ball lightning, the Mary Celeste, the ghost at the altar, Bigfoot, the statue of the Virgin Mary that bled, the toads found inside rocks… I read the backs of those cards hundreds of times 😊

[@christopher_ecclestone]

Yes! I'd completely forgotten about those. I used to collect them too. I also remember there being one about a city appearing in the sky. All those bits of information felt really valuable because of how much more difficult it was to find stuff out. Now you could just watch one KZbin video and learn about every one of those cards, but the hard won nature of those facts made them feel more valuable and mysterious.

[@lellytalks4296]

The most unbelievable element of this is the time difference. The idea of the 70s broadcast only being 60 years on from when the photos were taken. It already felt like a world away. And to see her being interviewed, the girl in the photos from the era of Sherlock and mid WW1 stood in the Glam rock flare wearing 70s felt so anachronistic. Yet, here we are today. Almost 50 years again since this broadcast went out.

[@atomictraveller]

it's been about 50 years since there was anything on the television worth watching (but tim's passed, so bill and graeme would be stuck). how long since them ills brothers or duke recorded anything worth hearing? unbelievable. oh look gary glitter's shoulder pads.

[@markgatland977]

That guy is indeed rocking some quality trousers 👏👏👌

[@BadgerBotherer1]

@@markgatland977 He later lent them to the snooker player, Kirk Stevens.

[@mistofoles]

Not a mystery anymore - It has since emerged that the fairies/gnomes were indeed drawn and cut out by Elsie. The girls held the figures in place with hatpins. They were suprised when the adults actually believed them which is why they took more photos using the same method.

[@LeighRichards27]

indeed the cut outs you mention were used - towards the end of their lives however the girls maintained they'd seen real fairies in the beck.

[@sambda]

DYK, Elsie (a good artist) had a job at a chemist shop in Bradford. She helped out in the darkroom there and retouched and copied family photos etc. Another job involved retouching orthochromatic photos to make people's eyes look "right". Yet later she coloured in Christmas card images. No warning bells there (wink).

[@FoevaYgnBtfl]

😂​@@LeighRichards27

[@TechnoMinded-qp5in]

But where's your proof you can talk the talk but can you walk the walk why go through your time especially for 2 little girls who know nothing could possibly fake something where's the evidence to back up your claim?

[@eirianf]

I love how she is blatantly admitting what they did in this interview and it goes right over the interviewer's head!

[@ordesolomons9545]

What happened to Martin Young? He just seemed to disappear!

[@stuhh]

An excerpt from Monstrum! by Doc Shiels: "In 1917, at Cottingley Glen, near Bingley, Yorkshire, two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, were in the habit of playing with fairies. One day, during a game with the little people, Frances fell in the beck and got a soaking. She was severely reprimanded for the wetness of her clothes and the unbelievability of her excuse. Elsie, bright enchantress that she was, decided to back up the story with photographic proof. She borrowed her father's quarter-plate box camera and, back in the glen, snapped the first of those famous 'Cottingley Fairy Photographs'. The rest is Fortean history. Along with many others, I have always thought that the Cottingley sprites, as photographed, were cardboard cut-outs, and it is really rather amazing and amusing that anyone was ever fooled by them; but Elsie knew what she was doing. Her painted pasteboard models were just decoys, and the real fairies encouraged her in an interesting game. The fake fairies of Cottingley were a 'blind'." "I know the fairy race exists, and anyone who denies the fact is, for sure, an ignorant blind fool." 😉

[@AchtungEnglander]

Extraordinary story. The whole thing was fabricated by the two girls who traced pictures of dancers, added wings and stuck them into the ground using hair pins. The fact they kept the lie going for more than 60 years is remarkable. It's a good lesson that if you bullshit long enough truth gets eventually lost. We only know this because Elsie confessed before she passed away.

[@stephenspence1192]

Who did she confess to ?

[@AchtungEnglander]

A TV show. Watch Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World.

[@yellowbelly06]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3fCaYeAmZmMbtUsi=MhE7SEno4eYAiQ5L FFWD TO 11:46

[@AchtungEnglander]

@@yellowbelly06 yes thanks, World of Strange Powers, not Mysterious World.

[@halfbakedproductions7887]

Elsie died in 1988. Frances died in 1986 and so far as I know never confessed.

[@AnthonyMonaghan]

I love these photographs. I d o remember watching this as a 6 year old. Fairies are as real as you want them to be.

[@DepakoteMeister]

Not true. It doesn't matter how much a person wants the earth to be flat, it still stays round. Beliefs are diametrically opposed to facts. Which is why they are merely beliefs.

[@andywatts8654]

Depakotemeister - but you just said you believe in evolution!!

[@DepakoteMeister]

@@andywatts8654 Evolution has been proven time and time again. Do you not have free educatuion in your country, or free libraries?

[@hopebgood]

7:42 I'm just fascinated by Martin Youngs flares. They're impressive.

[@yellowbelly06]

Yup. One gust of wind on those trousers and he’ll be away with the fairies.

[@kellyshomemadekitchen]

@@yellowbelly06😂

[@hopebgood]

@@yellowbelly06 I was so mesmerised by the flared trousers that I've only just noticed his lapels go all the way back to his shoulders.

[@penelopesparrow]

That's a 5 star outfit, men's suits peaked in this one tiny moment. 💖

[@hopebgood]

@@penelopesparrow He's a walking mountain of cloth.

[@mattbugr4283]

I was born in 1921, I remember parents and uncles talking about this occasionally growing up, not one person believed any of it even back then, we weren't naive or unsophisticated!

[@sadem1045]

I have a hard time believing someone over 100 years old left this comment.

[@mattbugr4283]

@@sadem1045 Why ? I have been using the internet for over 30 years, my brain is fine, I've been keeping up with technology since before your parents were born !

[@nottmjas]

​@@mattbugr4283I have to be honest Matt and say that I too find it hard to believe that you're 103 years old, but I'll take your word it! I'm half your age and hope that my brain will be as active as yours if I'm lucky enough to live, and the world will still be around in another half century.

[@SasquatchAtTheSpaceDisco]

Arthur Conan Doyle believed it. He even went so far as to write a book in their defence called The Coming of the Fairies.

[@Da1Dez]

Would you ever consider doing a news story about a 103 year old who uses KZbin then?

[@what-uc]

A lesson in how gullible people can be

[@DepakoteMeister]

We don't need another lesson, we have religion as a constant reminder. Not to mention flat earthers, Alein spacecraft believers, and Madeliene McCann abduction believers (wonder how long this comment will stay?)

[@andywatts8654]

Charles Darwin was a mason - even he believed in God. Him and his colleagues invented evolution theory to steer us away from God

[@Siouxsi-Sioux]

​@@DepakoteMeisterGod isn't a fantasy.

[@fatherofthenoo]

You don't believe a child, who disappeared from her bed, was abducted? 🤨

[@conrad6226]

​@@Siouxsi-Siouxcould you say that to a child dying of cancer?

[@fatherofthenoo]

Stories like this, while not being proven with cold, hard facts, make life all the richer. Brings us closer to the stories and fantasies people cherish. The same applies to all "proven" fantasies, like religious deities. Just as long as you don't start to mix them up with reality.

[@glyph2011]

A wonderful story. Amused and interested me for years until the truth came out. Even when that happened it’s still a superb story. I love the fact that in this interview She tells the reporter A: “they looked like what you find in books”. And B. “I was very good at art”. The full explanation of how they did it. 😂😂

[@Dan23_7]

Yep I picked that up too. Basically admitting without being definitive.

[@warrenrandall6936]

Yet another scrutinous piece of journalism from the BBC.

[@SwingBandHeaven]

God, I remember watching this when it was broadcast originally!

[@chriswinwood6501]

This is absolute gold. Thank you.

[@alanbeaumont4848]

Once common, fairies as with cherubs hundreds of years earlier, were hunted to extinction for their wings; used to decorate ladies' hats. A sad story of man's indifference to the fate of other species.

[@atomictraveller]

humans lost their wings sitting in front of the telly looking for phrases to repeat and forgetting about the u.s. gold mining genocide in west papua for 63 years that'll do it, everytime

[@Michael-dj4iq]

It was angels. Be baptized exactly according to acts 2:38 recieve the holy ghost! With! The evidence of speaking in tounges.

[@RolandoRatas]

1990s movie Photographing Faries I think is based on this.

[@davidjbatley]

Nice to see I live on Cottingley road and used to attend Cottingley Manor even today Cottingley folk will still say fairies are down the beck

[@savanahb3637]

i really want to visit this village. is there a way to go down to the beck still?

[@jamesshore2987]

What's with the Geordie accents? Cottingley is more Bingley than Byker

[@sambda]

I think people believed them because, at that time, little girls (not that Elsie, at 15 when this started, was exactly a "little" girl) did not lie to adults, and *certainly* did not keep repeating poker-faced lies to investigators, the press, and bigwigs like Conan-Doyle. That would have been unbelievably naughty. They also came from a quite good middle-class rural background. The elder girl was actually 15 when the first batch of photos were taken (yet older for the second batch, and actually engaged to be married when most of the wide publicity occurred) and I guess she was considered "too old" for telling made-up stuff about fairies (probably presumed to be more interested in boys at that point - she was very attractive).

[@sammemrys8195]

I do believe in fairies, I do, I do.😊

[@georgepointer1127]

It's all true you get plenty of fairy's in and around Brighton/ hove.

[@Siouxsi-Sioux]

Teaching the kids to lie and manipulate. Thanks Dad.

[@atomictraveller]

apron lodge bubbas. "i am now completely invisible" hey, ---> m3rdeka p49ua

[@hachi041]

Theres actually lots of stories these days about things like this, but it's never referred to as fairies

[@nadionmediagroup]

Your Narrator: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Young_(journalist)

[@RaveDave871]

Wow ! The reporter's flares👖 as stunning as em fairies 😳

[@shaunigothictv1003]

It would be funny if the fairies appeared as black African women from the central african Congo as opposed to White Aryan Scandinavian women.

[@76ToneCrome]

I'm definitely team Elsie and Frances. They had fun and fooled Sherlock Holmes. And yes, we can be sure because it has been debunked. Elsie lied like a Tory. 😂

[@johntomlinson6849]

Obsessional...

[@atomictraveller]

better fair than goaled pepepopo? no thanks, i'm airborne

[@AtheistOrphan]

Fooled Sherlock Holmes? Er, just like the fairies, Sherlock Holmes was fictional.

[@76ToneCrome]

@AtheistOrphan Nuance, not your strong point.

[@leegraham3473]

Nothing wrong having a imagination

[@moominmay]

The figures look so 1D compared to their environment I’m surprised so many people were taken in or even in doubt!

[@ordesolomons9545]

Well, I always say, I've never experienced any supernatural phenomena but I have met a lot of bare faced liars.

[@nicolepowell5470]

Don't know about the expert at the time but you can clearly see they are cardboard cut outs, did always love this though as as child in the 70's

[@Dan23_7]

Although she admitted they were fake years later doesn’t dispute the fact that it’s still a magical idea that they do exist.

[@LeighRichards27]

It later transpired cut outs from a book were used. Towards the end of their lives however the girls insisted they'd really seen fairies (and that one of the photos was genuine).

[@sambda]

Princess Mary's Gift Book - I have a copy here. The image the girls traced the fairies from is one thing (p104), but perhaps even more telling (and usually overlooked) is a colour plate, also by Claude A Shepperson, of a fairy perched on the hand of a young girl, observing it (opp. p92). This other picture inspired the whole thing, if you want my opinion.

[@spockofdune8657]

come on ! It's blatantly paper and badly drawn figures.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

Just wait till Mariana Spring hears about this conspiricy theory!

[@robertgibson1036]

It was a harmless prank not intended to harm anyone a beautiful deception

[@BuckRolly1]

When a lie is told often enough it becomes 'truth'...

[@Da1Dez]

The fourth photo looks so fake, if the fairy was really leaping in the air then how come it appears sharp and not blurred, whereas Frances is blurred while sitting still.

[@WillScarlet1991]

And then a few years later, they both admitted it was all nonsense 🤣

[@Amanda-r3t7n]

True all true 🧚🏾‍♀️

[@davidbeazley1958]

No one has been able to prove that the pictures were fake…. Really? Pictures of fairies? 🙄

[@scottbob2300]

Bullshit

[@octaviussludberry9016]

Yes, and? They admitted they were fake. What's your point?

[@scottbob2300]

@@octaviussludberry9016 what's your point?

[@octaviussludberry9016]

@@scottbob2300 Ypu said it was bullshit. You had a point I asked what it was.

[@scottbob2300]

@@octaviussludberry9016 fairytales

[@sarahbailes-moorhouse5611]

Love This Video

[@fredo1070]

I recognise the voice of Martin Young but never knew his name.

[@atomictraveller]

i recognise the hot breath and smooth silky ok i quit :)

[@DepakoteMeister]

Fantasy. Next.

[@octaviussludberry9016]

Yes, and? They admitted they were fake. What's your point?

[@DepakoteMeister]

@@octaviussludberry9016 I didn't watch it, I was merely commenting on the stupid title.

[@octaviussludberry9016]

@@DepakoteMeister It's common knowledge ffs

[@DepakoteMeister]

@@octaviussludberry9016 What is common knowledge, the fact that the title of this clip is stupid? It's common knowledge that ghosts , gods, and aliens don't exist, and the earth is flat...doesn't stop millions believing in them. Don't under estimate human gullibility.

[@halfbakedproductions7887]

I wonder why Frances didn't appear in this documentary. She lived up to 1986. There were also plenty of people even at the time who thought this was utter nonsense.

[@sambda]

The father of one of the girls (uncle of the other) thought it was utter nonsense and locked the camera and photos away, cross with the girls for trying on this BS. Trouble is, the mother and aunt quietly took copies to a Theosophical meeting, and one thing led to another...

[@toomanycables996]

What a horrible person. Knowingly lying about this for so many years. She should be reviled.

[@ELLIOTNEWPIP]

Bollllllllooooxxx

[@octaviussludberry9016]

Yes, and? They admitted they were fake. What's your point?

[@ELLIOTNEWPIP]

@@octaviussludberry9016 bolllooooxxxxxx