Sherlock Holmes, Fairies, and the Devil Baby of Hull House

1. Although Conan Doyle created the words famous fictional detective, he makes big mistakes doing detective work himself. The first mistake he made was not being at the scene of the investigation. He told another believer in the fairies ,named Edward Gardner, to go and investigate the girls who took the fairy photo. In order to get real evidence and prove his point, he needed to go and see for himself. Gardener could have given him false information or misinterpreted something. This would mess up Conan Doyle’s investigation and question the credibility of his work. The next mistake he made was misjudging Elsie Wright, the photographer of the fairies. Elsie Wright was an 18 year old artists that paints very well. She had many watercolors on the wall that showed her art skills. Gardner had seen those but refused to believe that she was talented enough to paint fairies. Conan Doyle agreed. When doing an investigation, it’s best not to make assumptions because you’re trying to find out the truth. If they had taken the time to understand and get to know Elsie Wright they wouldn’t have made the mistake of assumption. They were blinded because they really wanted the fairies to be real. 
2. Many of the woman that seek to see the devil baby share lots of commonalities. They have all been through trauma, and tragic experiences. Most of them are old and don’t believe in tales, but they related to the devil baby in some way. The baby has many imperfections and flaws like horns, pointed ears and a furry body. Many of these women consider their lives to be as ugly as the devil baby is. They found comfort in knowing that there is something else in the world that is just as messed up as them. Most of the women’s stories shared a common factor of their husband behaving and treating them badly. The men were never good fathers to their kids or good husbands to them, and they would often get abused. One woman shared her story about how she had eleven children and all of them died except for one. She was a child her father chased her and her mother around with a knife before taking his own life. That’s a very traumatic thing to see, especially at only twelve years old. After a while she started to go back to school and everything was normal, and her mother was very happy to see her doing well. That was until her child started acting in weird ways and needed to be sent to an asylum. The woman was able to visit her daughter once a week which gave her peace of mind. That was until her daughter suddenly died of heart failure, and she didn’t find out until the next day. All these women have traumatic stories like this one, and it is as if they believe that the mother of this devil baby also had a very tough and painful life. I think people are drawn to believing things that don’t exist because they have some underlying issues that make them find comfort in fake stories. Conan Doyle lost close family members in World War 1 which is a painful thing to endure. This caused him to believe in spiritualism. The women at the Hull House have been through the most painful of things, and they want to see the “devil baby” because they feel it represents them in a way. They feel they can relate to it. One woman talked about her son, and how he learned terrible behaviors from his dad. She states, “The ugliness was born in the boy as the marks of the devil was born in the poor child upstairs”. She felt as though the devil represented her son, and how he was made to become a bad person, like how the devil was put inside the baby. I think that when people go through such tragedies it can mess with their state of mind, and cause them to feed into their delusions.  
3. I agree with Doyle on the fact that science will never go to the lengths to find truths as someone who believes in spiritualism would. Science would most likely shut down the idea without doing substantial research first. Doyle also was a person that got clouded by his ideas which caused him to create false evidence. When you want something to be real so bad, you will find a way to convince yourself it is. I believe that spiritualism sometimes comes from a place of delusion, or a wrong state of mind. Most of the mysteries people wonder about are things that are so far from reality. Most mysteries would be able to have factual evidence to back it up if it was true, so I don’t really believe in any spiritual myths. 
4. Is Bigfoot real? Many people have pondered this question for years. Since 1950, some people believed in the existence of a tall, hairy, human like creature. According to history.com, Director Peter Byrne of the Bigfoot Information Center sent the FBI 15 hairs attached to a small piece of skin. He wanted the FBI to investigate it because he couldn’t identify what kind of animal it came from. Byrne was one of the better Bigfoot researchers, and he wanted the help of the FBI. In 1967, Robert Gimlin and Roger Patterson release footage of what was supposed to be Bigfoot running around in Northern California. This was the evidence that made everyone at the time obsess over this creature. Many people didn’t believe it. They came to the conclusion that it was just a prankster in a costume. Peter Byrne on the other hand, believed it was true. The FBI did in fact investigate this mystery, but they didn’t find any substantial evidence to prove it. Bigfoot believers convinced themselves that it must be real because the FBI wouldn’t have taken it seriously if it wasn’t. Those 15 hairs that Byrne sent to FBI to investigate turned out to be only deer hairs. Byrne didn’t want to believe it, or publicize it. Radford stated, “if you’re going to make a big enough deal about this unknown specimen to give it to the FBI, then you’re not going to want to publicize the fact that it turned out to be deer”. This proves how badly Byrne wanted to be correct, and prove that Bigfoot is real. The evidence of this myth is not very strong or convincing, but some people still choose to believe it. They will find anyway to make it real. There’s evidence, and there’s things that prove it wrong. Personally, I don’t think there’s enough evidence for it to be real. But it’s up you to decide, do you think Bigfoot is real?

Source 1: https://www.history.com/news/bigfoot-fbi-file-investigation-discovery 

Source 2: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-so-many-people-still-believe-in-bigfoot-180970045/