Conan Doyle gained fame by creating the world's foremost fictional detective in Sherlock Holmes, but what in what ways did he fail to do good detective work himself when it came to the Case of the Cottingham Fairies?
Doyle’s first mistake was taking the word of two teenage girls, believing that two young women of their class couldn’t possibly pull off such a complicated hoax. Doyle also made an error by sending Edward Gardner, an avid believer in fairies, to investigate. Not once did anyone consider potential bias in the investigation. Gardner and Doyle both made a grave error in their judgement of Elsie Wright. They didn’t stop to consider the fact that an artistic young girl with the facilities to make realistic fairy cutouts and take fake pictures with an accomplice could do so. Gardner and Doyle were so caught up in their investigation that they couldn’t realize some major red flags. Not very Sherlock Holmes-like.
Conan Doyle had lost both his son and brother in World War I. Deep in grief, he found himself in spiritualism, the occult, and beliefs in fairies. In the next essay, "The Devil Baby of Hull House," hundreds of people, particularly women and mothers, come to visit Hull House (a settlement home for immigrant families) intent on seeing a devil baby that does not in fact exist. What does author Jane Addams discover that many of these women share in common? She listens to the stories of these women, fascinated. Share one of those stories that she uncovers by paraphrasing it here. When you consider Conan Doyle and the stories of these women who come to Hull House, what are some observations you have about why people might be drawn in to believing in things that don't exist? Try to draw connections between the essays.
Author Jane Addams discovers that the one thing the women share in common was the fact that they’d all been faced with disaster and death. They can’t expect anything more from life. They’ve already been through the unimaginable, so at this rate, anything seem’s believable to them. The one story that stuck out to me was the one where two kids out of fourteen made it to adulthood, and they both killed because of the same explosion. This story reminded me a lot of Conan Doyle’s, and how he lost his son and brother to the same war. I feel like as a result of horrifying experiences like these, people tend to form very overactive imaginations as a way of coping with the struggles of the real world. People the three women, or Doyle chase the imaginary, because it frees their minds from the confines of trauma.
"There is nothing scientifically impossible, so far as I can see, in some people seeing things that are invisible to others," Conan Doyle wrote. He conceded that, "Victorian science would have left the world hard and clean and bare, like a landscape in the moon" (qtd. in Losure 92-93). More than a hundred years later in what ways do you agree with Doyle? Is there a particular mystery that you think is beyond science?
I agree with Doyle in the sense that a lot of things the we think to be scientifically impossible are in fact quite the opposite. Science is based on perspective, and not everybody can see or understand the same things. Sometimes, a fresh point of view is all it takes to solve life’s greatest mysteries. One particular mystery that I think is beyond science is the whole idea of the Big Bang. It seems like we have it all figured out, but the fact that there was a whole lot of “nothingness” before our universe just seems beyond human comprehension. I mean, something had to cause the Big Bang, right?
In a long paragraph, create a mystery for a reader of your blog. Choose one world mystery or urban legend or cryptid (often called cryptozoology) such as Bigfoot, chupacabras, ghosts, the Lochness monster, the Jersey Devil, the kraken, mermaids, Mothman, selkies, the Thunderbird, etc.—or any other creature you can think of. Or choose a psychic phenomenon such as telepathy or telekinesis. Using research, explore what evidence exists out there that might or might not prove the existence of such a being? Quote from at least one of your articles. What do you believe after your search?
All throughout North America, both skeptics and believers have been asking the same question for years now: is there a Bigfoot? Since their first documentation in 1811 by David Thompson, the idea of Sasquatches has gripped the world. For decades, people have reported seeing these large, hairy, almost ape-like creatures. Alleged footprints, hair samples, and blurry photographs and videos have all been put forth as evidence, but with so little being known about Sasquatches, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Most researchers claim that the samples presented to them display anatomical features that aren’t notable on any other creatures. It’s worth noting that evidence can be faked, and this has been the basis of many skeptics arguments. Because of this, the notorious Patterson-Gilman film (1967) remains one of, if not the most debated Bigfoot videos of all time. The grainy video quality makes it so difficult to tell whether or not we’re looking at Bigfoot, or some funny guy in a fur suit, which is why the grounds around the film are so hot, even to this day. Regardless, the film sparked a Bigfoot craze throughout the U.S. As sightings continued to skyrocket, so did skepticisms. Every account of Bigfoot was based on human memory, and we all know how unreliable memory can be. “In crime cases…witnesses can be influenced by their emotions and miss or distort important details. In the same vein, people also often overestimate their ability to remember things. When it comes to…Bigfoot, the human brain is capable of making up explanations for events it can’t immediately interpret”(https://www/livescience.com/24598-bigfoot.html). It is for that reason why I hold a firm belief that Bigfoot, as well as other cryptids don’t exist. When people are relaying accounts of certain unexplainable things they’ve face, they exaggerate details and go overboard with their explanations. The impact that Bigfoot had on American culture made it so easy to lie, because people wanted to believe that there was a giant-footed creature out there waiting to be seen.
