FAIRIES AGAIN

Evening Star, Issue 20010, 30 October 1928, Page 3

FAIRIES AGAIN

PHOTOGRAPHIC " EVIDEHCE " CONAN DOYLE'S BELIEFS. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has issued a second edition of his work ‘The Comine; of the Fairies.’ In the preface to this Sir Arthur says that any doubts which ho might have had about the truth of the photographic evidence of the existence of fairies have now disappeared, and that “ tho discovery by Columbus of a new terrestrial clement is a lesser achievement than, the demonstration of a completely new order of life inhabiting tho same planet as ourselves, ami separated from us by so small a, difference in vibration of our retina under conditions which the evidence Imre collected shows to ho not infrequent.” Tho new edition contains new evidence from Devonshire and Germany. Two cyclisst wore touring Devonshire. At a wayside grove they took snapshots of the same scone. In one picture, that snapped first, a tiny Robin Hood kind of figure can be discerned standing at the foot of a tree. The second photograph shows' no such figure. Sir Arthur assumes that the little creature, hearing tho click of the first camera, was alarmed, and vanished. GNOME THREE FEET HIGH. There is, further to this, the evidence'of a Miss Else «Arnheim. She is a German journalist, and is vouchsafed for by Dr Fritz Quade, of Berlin, a chemist and psychic researcher, as being “critical, reserved in her judgments, and absolutely truthful.” Miss Arnheim toils of strange experiences. One night in her bedroom she beheld the shape of a tiny man, 3ft high, in a tightly-fitting coat, and a peaked cap. “ Why, that must he a gnome,” she said. He came a number of times. She spoke to him. and christened him “ Troll.” Troll used to express himself by drawing diagrams. For instancej to express the sentence, “ I enter a house,” ho drew a quadrangle on the carpet, then pointed through the window' at a house outside, and finally stepped into the quadrangle.

FRIGHTENED BY FLASHLIGHT. On Christmas Eve. 1927, Miss Arnfeeim and her friend succeeded in ■photographing Troll with a flashlif|ht Exposure, but it was not considered Sonvincing. Troll' apparently disliked .ashlights, and fled in terror; his visits be came fewer, and finally ceased. In the summer of 1927 Miss Arnhcim fliscoverod other gnomes in the same locality (East Prussia). She managed to secure two pictures of one, and also A snap of a flower elf just as it had Reaped from a sprig of bloom. Dr Quade, commenting 0 n the experiences and photographs, says:

The principal question evoked by these interesting snapshots is whether the creatures which appear on the pictures arc real independent beings, or whether they are creatures of iMiss Arnheim’s fantasy, merely thought-pictures. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, apparently in full belief of tho genuineness of the photographs, sums up his views with tho following happy and comforting thought:— “ It is reassuring to find that nowhere do wo find traces of malignancy in this new order of _ life wdtich has so suddenly obtruded itself as an actual reality.”