The Great Cottingley Fairies Hoax

Once upon a time, in a little town in England named Cottingley, two girls named Frances (10) and Elsie (16) loved to play by a little waterfall called a beck. One day, to get Frances out of trouble for getting her stockings wet, Frances and Elsie borrowed a parent's camera to "prove" that they were really playing with fairies. This is the first photo, of "Frances and the Dancing Fairies." Although Elsie's dad, Arthur Wright, whose camera they used, never believed the pictures were real, eventually, other adults did. A prank by two little girls with big imaginations and some talent in art and photography (at least on the part of Elsie) eventually became a story heard 'round the world. Some people still want to believe and Cottingley Fairy interest remains high.
Elsie was considered rather poor as a student, but good as an artist. The photo was taken one month after the first, in August, 1917, and is known as "Elsie and the Gnome Fairy." Initially, all parents involved were highly sceptical, but the mothers of both girls were interested in spiritualism and theosophy (which explored the nature of God). Eventually, in 1919, the pictures received public notice and strong interest and controversy grew quickly. The photos were first examined by an expert in 1920 and declared legitimate, but there was, in fact, never a definitive conclusion by experts (possibly, the photos were "sharpened" before examinations). To our 21st-Century eyes, they seem pretty darn obvious, but this was less clear 90 years ago.
This is the third photo, taken some time after the First World War, called "Frances and the Leaping Fairy." The fact that these photos were taken around the time of the Great War and become a sensation for some time after is relevant. According to http://www.cottingley.net/, the site where I found much of my information on this story, many families were heartbroken and desperate after losing loved ones in the war. It's not surprising that many of them turned to a belief in ghosts, fairies and spirits to help them cope with their grief.
Here's Elsie at 19, in a picture called "Fairy Offering a Posy to Elsie." The image of this rather mature looking young lady, next to what is clearly an artist's drawing of a fairy, seems like little more than bad photo doctoring now, but none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the genius behind the Sherlock Homes stories, utterly believed in the veracity of the photos and went to his grave with true faith in the Cottingley Fairies. Like so many English people, he lost close relatives (a son and a brother) as a result of World War One. His belief in fairies and spirits, which predated the war, made him a laughingstock to many people, and harmed his reputation, at least in the short term.
"The Fairy Sunbath" is notable for not including either girl. As the '20s wore on, the pictures were the subject of great debate, and every so often, doing the next 50 years or so, the pictures would show up again and cause a stir. By then, both girls were married and moving on with their lives. In the 1980's, they decided to 'fess up, and admitted that the fairy images were from "Princess Mary's Gift Book." Frances died still saying she believed in fairies.