Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Cottingley Fairies fooled investigators, captured the imagination of Arthur Conan Doyle, and became one of the strangest photographic controversies in British history.
More than a century later, their story feels surprisingly relevant.
In 1917, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her cousin Elsie Wright photographed what appeared to be fairies beside Cottingley Beck in Yorkshire. The images were inspected, debated and eventually championed by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.
The photographs weren't sophisticated darkroom tricks.
The girls had simply placed paper fairies in front of the camera.
And that's where this story gets interesting.
Because the camera had technically photographed exactly what was in front of it. The mistake happened when people decided what the photograph meant.
In this episode of The Hidden Archive, I look at the Cottingley Fairies, Arthur Conan Doyle's belief in the supernatural, confirmation bias, fake photographs and what an Edwardian fairy hoax might tell us about AI-generated images, deepfakes and our changing relationship with visual evidence.
We're getting very good at making convincing images of things that never happened.
The fairies have got better.
If you enjoy strange history, mythology, technology, psychology and figuring out what any of this means for the world we're heading into, subscribe to The Hidden Archive.
You can also join the Hidden Archive Skool community for free for access to books, apps, guides, courses and other things I've been building around the channel.
◆ CHAPTERS ◆
00:00 - The Photograph That Changed Everything
00:45 - The Cottingley Fairies
03:26 - People Actually Investigated This
04:33 - Arthur Conan Doyle Gets Involved
06:40 - Five Photographs and a National Mystery
08:26 - The Girls Finally Confess
10:05 - The Camera Was Innocent
11:18 - What Were We Actually Trusting?
12:56 - The Fairies Have Got Better
14:47 - When Real Evidence Becomes Easier to Reject
16:44 - Living With Uncertainty
18:03 - Leave This File Open
◆ MUSIC | ARTLIST◆
Itamar Gross - Last Fairy Tale
Risian - Maps Without Names
Itamar Gross - I Am Here
Daniel Dombrowsky - We Wait
Lars Bork Anderson - Dramatic Motion
Idokay - Kairos, Dreamy
Starluxe - Heavens
Idokay - What You’ve Been Looking For
Leroy Wild - Monomer
Nsee - Bloom
Yehezkel Raz - As Long as in Heart
◆ THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT ◆
Building a channel takes a lot of work and I wouldn't be able to do it without all the support, so it's much appreciated!
◆ LINKS ◆
📜 Books, Apps, Courses, Music, Resources 📜
skool.com/the-hidden-archive-4393
✒️ Thoughts, Experiments, News, Updates ✒️
jcunliffeuk.substack.com
🎥 Credits, Accolades, Movies, Games 🎥
imdb.com/name/nm6382359/?ref_=fn_al_nm_3
💬 Socials 💬
https://x.com/jcunliffeuk
instagram.com/JCunliffeUK
https://bsky.app/profile/jcunliffeuk.bsky.social
⚙️ Everything Else ⚙️
https://linktr.ee/JCunliffeUK
◆ HELP THE CHANNEL ◆
I'd like to put more time into the channel but have a very limited amount of time to do it. If you're enjoying the work, get subscribed, share it around social media. The higher the view and sub count goes, the higher the chance this channel will keep ticking along.
The Cottingley Fairies fooled investigators, captured the imagination of Arthur Conan Doyle, and became one of the strangest photographic controversies in British history.
More than a century later, their story feels surprisingly relevant.
In 1917, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her cousin Elsie Wright photographed what appeared to be fairies beside Cottingley Beck in Yorkshire. The images were inspected, debated and eventually championed by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.
The photographs weren't sophisticated darkroom tricks.
The girls had simply placed paper fairies in front of the camera.
And that's where this story gets interesting.
Because the camera had technically photographed exactly what was in front of it. The mistake happened when people decided what the photograph meant.
In this episode of The Hidden Archive, I look at the Cottingley Fairies, Arthur Conan Doyle's belief in the supernatural, confirmation bias, fake photographs and what an Edwardian fairy hoax might tell us about AI-generated images, deepfakes and our changing relationship with visual evidence.
We're getting very good at making convincing images of things that never happened.
The fairies have got better.
If you enjoy strange history, mythology, technology, psychology and figuring out what any of this means for the world we're heading into, subscribe to The Hidden Archive.
You can also join the Hidden Archive Skool community for free for access to books, apps, guides, courses and other things I've been building around the channel.
◆ CHAPTERS ◆
00:00 - The Photograph That Changed Everything
00:45 - The Cottingley Fairies
03:26 - People Actually Investigated This
04:33 - Arthur Conan Doyle Gets Involved
06:40 - Five Photographs and a National Mystery
08:26 - The Girls Finally Confess
10:05 - The Camera Was Innocent
11:18 - What Were We Actually Trusting?
12:56 - The Fairies Have Got Better
14:47 - When Real Evidence Becomes Easier to Reject
16:44 - Living With Uncertainty
18:03 - Leave This File Open
◆ MUSIC | ARTLIST◆
Itamar Gross - Last Fairy Tale
Risian - Maps Without Names
Itamar Gross - I Am Here
Daniel Dombrowsky - We Wait
Lars Bork Anderson - Dramatic Motion
Idokay - Kairos, Dreamy
Starluxe - Heavens
Idokay - What You’ve Been Looking For
Leroy Wild - Monomer
Nsee - Bloom
Yehezkel Raz - As Long as in Heart
◆ THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT ◆
Building a channel takes a lot of work and I wouldn't be able to do it without all the support, so it's much appreciated!
◆ LINKS ◆
📜 Books, Apps, Courses, Music, Resources 📜
skool.com/the-hidden-archive-4393
✒️ Thoughts, Experiments, News, Updates ✒️
jcunliffeuk.substack.com
🎥 Credits, Accolades, Movies, Games 🎥
imdb.com/name/nm6382359/?ref_=fn_al_nm_3
💬 Socials 💬
https://x.com/jcunliffeuk
instagram.com/JCunliffeUK
https://bsky.app/profile/jcunliffeuk.bsky.social
⚙️ Everything Else ⚙️
https://linktr.ee/JCunliffeUK
◆ HELP THE CHANNEL ◆
I'd like to put more time into the channel but have a very limited amount of time to do it. If you're enjoying the work, get subscribed, share it around social media. The higher the view and sub count goes, the higher the chance this channel will keep ticking along.
