Saturday 18 May 2013

The Strange Case of The Mummified Fairy

This intriguing story first came to light in 2009....

Do Fairies live at the bottom of your garden?

Maybe not anymore but a recent discovery would suggest that they probably did. What appear to be the mummified remains of a fairy have been discovered in the Derbyshire countryside. The 8inch remains complete with wings; skin, teeth and flowing red hair have been examined by anthropologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine. X-rays of the ‘fairy’ reveal an anatomically identical skeleton to that of a child. The bones however, are hollow like those of a bird making them particularly light. The puzzling presence of a navel even suggests that the beings reproduce the same as humans despite the absence of reproductive organs.

The remains were discovered by a local man, who wishes to remain anonymous, while walking his dog along an old roman road situated between the Derbyshire villages of Duffield and Belper. The area has long been shrouded in mystery with tales of ghostly highwaymen and strange ‘dancing’ lights on warm summer evenings.

“I was walking along the lane at a point which passes an old Iron Age barrow (burial mound) when my dog began to bark and act rather strangely. He was barking in the direction of the barrow and would not go anywhere near it which was strange as we walk past it almost every day. I was curious and approached the mound to see what could be disturbing him and it then I noticed something odd…..in the side of the barrow, a fissure as if a section of ground had subsided or opened up. The crack measured about 2ft long and 1ft wide and looked to have been formed recently as I had never seen it before. I knelt down and looked inside the dark hole. The hill seemed to be hollow like a cave as I could feel a cool draught against my skin. I used the small led torch on my car keys to see if I could see anything in the darkness. It was at this point I saw something that startled me, 2 or 3 feet in front of me I could see a human like form only this was much smaller. My initial instinct was to call the police as I thought it may be the body of a small child but as I looked closer I could see that this was not the case. It was too small and more importantly, it had what appeared to be wings! Not want to touch it I used a stick to carefully drag it out and picked it up in one of the dog’s poo bags (empty of course).”

He immediately called his wife stating he had found something ‘unbelievable’ and asked her to bring a camera and a box immediately.“When I first arrived I could hear the dog barking from some distance, I had no idea what he had found. As I approached the barrow I could see my husband crouched down looking a something on the floor. “What have you found?” I shouted, “See for yourself” he said. I looked down and saw a tiny but perfect mummified human body with hair, dark brown skin and more disturbingly, wings. “I know what it looks like”, he said “but how can it be? And there’s not just one, I’ve had another look inside that hole in the ground and there are more!”

The body was taken home in a biscuit tin and kept in a garage overnight. The following day the local police were informed and the remains were taken away for analysis. As a local expert on the paranormal I was approached by the police for my advice although this was kept rather quiet to avoid ridicule and press attention. I was taken to the location by the man who originally discovered this amazing find. On closer inspection the barrow appears to contain more that 20 fairy bodies all in varying states of mummification.

The dry cave like interior has preserved the remains to such a degree that some bodies even have tiny finger nails and eye brows. I have returned since then to document the find as much as possible. On one particular occasion I was shocked to discover that some attempt had been made to reseal the barrow but by whom?

The site appears to be a burial ground for fairy folk and the exact location of the find has not been revealed and no further remains have been removed from the mound. It has not been substantiated how long the remains have been there although the state of mummification would suggest more than 400 years. The countryside could be strewn with hidden burial mounds which have lain undiscovered for centuries. How could such creatures exist without detection for so many years? Cryptozoologists who have examined the remains suspect they have evolved to suit their surrounding so well they would be virtually invisible to the naked eye. Their wings and skin pigment would camouflage them extremely well and they would most probably live in the tree tops and rarely venture down to ground level. In winter they would probably retreat underground into cave networks.Whether they still exist is another question but the remains found in Derbyshire have laid thousands of years of folklore to rest.”

 
I can reveal I have been in contact with the 'unknown' man.
Those of you who believe in fairies, stop reading here... 
Seriously.  Stop!
 
Okay, still with me?  The ingenious hoaxer behind this story is Dan Baines, quirkmeister and all round interesting person.  He's a real life 'Jonathan Creek', creating truly ingenious magical illusions for professional magicians.  His style is visionary, and he's also a master prop-maker for wonderful movies including those of Guillermo Del Torro, (The Devil's Backbone, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth etc.).  Dan's website is breathtakingly fabulous, blending Lovecraftian darkness with eccentric steampunk - so, if you want a real visual treat, go to :
 
Even the name, 'Lebanon Circle' is synonymous with weirdness.
The Circle of Lebanon is an area in Highgate cemetary, (London for non-Brits; last resting place of numerous luminaries), where an enormous Lebanese Cedar tree has grown in the middle of the dozen or so tombs of a family vault.  The eerie looking circle has begun to sink - and, shiver if you must... a genuine vampire was spotted there in the 70's... not the 1870's... the 1970's!   
 
 
 
Dan revealed his mummified fairy was a hoax back in 2009, but it has appeared all over the internet again only recently - probably around April Fool's Day to begin with....hmmm....
He was at a convention last weekend speaking about it.  What amazed him, when he originally revealed the whole thing was a hoax, was the number of seemingly sane, but very earnest people who insisted he was lying, that the mummified fairy was real, and that he must be secretly working for the government!  At one point he was getting tens of thousands of emails about it...
 
Okay fans, this is strictly between you and me... ready?  Dan's agreed to his story being included in book two of The Enigma Wars - Cold Redemption, the follow up to The Last Changeling.  To muddy the shallow waters lying between the very narrow channel that divides truth and fiction, I am going to present the mummified fairy hoax as a deliberate attempt at misdirection, created to cover-up a far stranger event...
 
Cold Redemption is due for publication at the end of 2013.... and it's business as usual for D9, the secret counter-metahominid unit, with the truth being far, far stranger than any fiction....