Haven’t I Seen This Somewhere Before?

This alleged photograph of an alien reminds me of the infamous Cottingley Fairy Photographs. I consulted Garth Haslam, of AnomalyInfo.com, and found the following information: In 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths took a series of photographs of fairies. The girls lived in Cottingley, in West Yorkshire, England.

The first one showed Frances with fairies dancing around her. Later, Frances took a photo of Elsie playing with a gnome. Elsie’s mother was interested in the supernatural, so she took the pictures to a Theosophist meeting. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, eventually took an interest in the photos and wrote an article defending them in the 1920 Strand magazine, which made them famous all over the world.

Doyle arranged for the girls to take more fairly photos. The girls then moved away from each other, and the fairy photos ended. In 1966, Elsie was quoted as saying she’d photographed “figments of my imagination,” and in 1971 on BBC TV, she wanted to leave the subject “open.” On a TV show in 1976, Frances (now 69) and Elsie (now 75) were asked, “Did you in any way fabricate those photographs?” Elsie said, “Of course not,” while Frances said, “You tell us how she could do it…and then we’ll tell you…Remember, she was sixteen. And I was ten.”

In an article in the Times of London on March 18, 1983, 76- year-old Frances Griffiths finally admitted the first four pictures were faked. 82-year-old Elsie Wright Hill at first refused to comment, but in a second article on April 4 she also admitted they were a hoax. They had cut out figures drawn on poster board by Elsie, and stood them up with pins. The fairies in the first photo were traced from an illustration of dancing girls that came from page 104 of “Princess Mary’s Gift Book.”

I’m very much afraid that this alien photograph will turn out to be a more sophisticated version of the fairy photos, produced by setting a moveable plastic “action” figure in the midst of some leaves. Looking at the Cottingley photos, a modern viewer, who’s looked at hundreds of thousands of photos over a lifetime, will sense something wrong with them immediately: the fairies look too “still.” There’s no sense of movement there. I see the same thing in this “alien” photo?it looks too posed.

To those of you who have had UFO sightings or personal experiences with aliens, as well as those who (like myself) only know people who have, I say this: The testimony of so many witnesses is all the evidence we need for now that something real is happening. We don’t know what it is, because we don’t yet have the scientific knowledge to understand it. But someday we will. Meanwhile, there’s no need to be drawn in by a hoax?there’s plenty of real proof that UFOs are real.

To view the Cottingley Fairy Photographs, click here.

NOTE: This Diary entry, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.