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The Cottingley Fairies柯亭立精灵
Tinkerbell would be pleased that these young girls believed in fairies, but perhaps would have disapproved of their methods of “proving” it. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were cousins. Elsie, 16, was a wonderful artist who worked in a photo lab and a greeting card factory. She borrowed her dad’s camera to take some pictures, and when they were developed, pictures of fairies happened to be in some of them. He declared them fake, but Elsie’s mother disagreed.
小叮当也许为小女孩相信精灵的存在高兴，但可能不赞成他们“证明”小精灵存在的方式。艾尔西•怀特和弗朗西斯•格里菲斯是堂姐妹，16岁的艾尔西是一个工作在照片馆和明信片工厂的美术天才，她拿她爸爸的照相机照了几张像，洗出来的时候有些照片里恰好有小精灵。她爸爸说那是假的，她妈妈却说是真的。
The pictures soon became public and were up for interpretation. One of the people fooled by the prints was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series. But not everyone was easily convinced. In order to show that the fairy sightings were real, a clairvoyant was brought to Cottingley. The idea was that if anyone else would be able to see fairies, surely a clairvoyant could. Perhaps eager to prove just how spiritual he was, the clairvoyant said that yes, he absolutely saw the fairies, although he was not able to get any more pictures.
这些照片很快公开，人们纷纷议论质疑。相信照片而被愚弄的人里面就有著名的福尔摩斯探案系列小说的作者柯南•道尔。但并不是每个人都信服。为了证明小精灵是真的，人们请一个通灵师到柯亭立镇。因为人们认为如果有什么人可以看见小精灵那么一定是通灵师。也许是为了证明自己的通灵能力，这个通灵师坚称他看到了小精灵，虽然他不能再看到什么别的神奇景象。
The whole thing remained unsolved until 1981, when the cousins were interviewed for a magazine called The Unexplained. They admitted they had made cut-out fairies and held them up with hatpins, and said they realized the joke had gone too far when Arthur Conan Doyle was duped. They were embarrassed to come forth after that and decided to keep up the ruse. However, Frances said that although the first four pictures were fakes, the fifth one (the one on the left, above) was real and that she and her cousin actually did see fairies.
直到1981年《未知》杂志采访这堂姐妹两时，这个谜团才解开。他们承认他们只是用纸剪出小精灵的形状然后用别针固定照了几张相，直到柯南•道尔也上当之后他们才意识到这玩笑开大了。之后他们羞于承认说谎并决定继续让人们相信这恶作剧。然而弗朗西斯说尽管前四张照片是假的，第五张照片（上方侧的照片）是真的，她和堂姐的确看到了小精灵。
The Lying Stones说谎的石头
A Professor at the University of Wurzburg in Germany was fooled by his colleagues in the 18th century. They carved limestone into animal shapes and carved the name of God on them in various characters and hid them on a nearby mountain where Professor Beringer liked to hunt for fossils. Beringer became convinced that the carvings were actually created by God himself. Even when people pointed out that the limestone showed chisel marks, he held to his theory and even published a book on the stones.
在18世纪德国伍兹堡大学的一位教授被他的同事愚弄了。他的同事们把石灰岩刻成动物的现状并在上面刻上了各种文字的上帝的名字，然后把这些石头藏在了勃林格教授经常发掘化石的附近的山上。勃林格教授确信这些刻痕真的是上帝创造的。甚至有人指出这些石头上有凿子刻刀的痕迹时，勃林格教授仍然坚信他的理论，甚至发表一个一部关于这些假化石的著作。
His colleagues eventually came clean, but he refused to believe them and called them agnostic. He was finally convinced when the two men testified in court that they had just wanted to discredit Beringer because he was so conceited. Beringer pretty much ruined himself financially trying to buy up all of the copies of his ridiculous book. The stones became known as Lügensteine, the lying stones.
他的同事最后出来澄清事实，可是他还是不相信他们，还把他们叫做不可知论者。最终其中两个同事在法庭上证言，因为勃林格教授太自负，他们只是想让勃林格教授丢脸。勃林格教授才相信这是一场恶作剧。勃林格教授为了购买收回已经自己已经发表的荒诞著作几乎破产。而这些石头也以“说谎的石头”而闻名。
The Brooklyn Bridge – For Sale布鲁克林大桥待售
George Parker would sell anything that wasn’t nailed down – no, wait, he sold stuff that was nailed down, too. Cemented and bolted down, in fact. He set up an office in New York to handle real estate deals – huge deals. Among his offerings were the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb, Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He would convince buyers that they could own a piece of history and even made some very convincing documents giving them ownership. He is the reason the phrase “If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you,” came about. Despite all of these sales – he supposedly “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week – he was only convicted of fraud three times.
乔治•帕克能卖任何还没卖掉的东西——不，等等，他也卖板上钉钉有主的东西，实际上是确定以及肯定已经有主的东西。他在大宗不动产交易中欺骗了纽约的一家公司。这些交易里包括布鲁克林大桥、自由女神像、格兰特墓、麦迪逊花园广场和大都会艺术博物馆。他能让买家相信他们创造了历史甚至伪造了一些令人非常信服的所有权证件。有句俗话叫“只要你信，我就可以把布鲁克林大桥卖给你。”就是从这里来的。在所有的买卖里，据说仅布鲁克林大桥他就一周里“卖”了两次。但他仅仅以诈骗罪被审判过三次。
