手機版
The Cottingley Fairies柯亭立精靈
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.
小叮當也許為小女孩相信精靈的存在高興，但可能不贊成他們“證明”小精靈存在的方式。艾爾西•懷特和弗朗西斯•格里菲斯是堂姐妹，16歲的艾爾西是一個工作在照片館和明信片工廠的美術天才，她拿她爸爸的照相機照了幾張像，洗出來的時候有些照片里恰好有小精靈。她爸爸說那是假的，她媽媽卻說是真的。
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.
這些照片很快公開，人們紛紛議論質疑。相信照片而被愚弄的人里面就有著名的福爾摩斯探案系列小說的作者柯南•道爾。但并不是每個人都信服。為了證明小精靈是真的，人們請一個通靈師到柯亭立鎮。因為人們認為如果有什么人可以看見小精靈那么一定是通靈師。也許是為了證明自己的通靈能力，這個通靈師堅稱他看到了小精靈，雖然他不能再看到什么別的神奇景象。
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》雜志采訪這堂姐妹兩時，這個謎團才解開。他們承認他們只是用紙剪出小精靈的形狀然后用別針固定照了幾張相，直到柯南•道爾也上當之后他們才意識到這玩笑開大了。之后他們羞于承認說謊并決定繼續讓人們相信這惡作劇。然而弗朗西斯說盡管前四張照片是假的，第五張照片（上方側的照片）是真的，她和堂姐的確看到了小精靈。
The Lying Stones說謊的石頭
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世紀德國伍茲堡大學的一位教授被他的同事愚弄了。他的同事們把石灰巖刻成動物的現狀并在上面刻上了各種文字的上帝的名字，然后把這些石頭藏在了勃林格教授經常發掘化石的附近的山上。勃林格教授確信這些刻痕真的是上帝創造的。甚至有人指出這些石頭上有鑿子刻刀的痕跡時，勃林格教授仍然堅信他的理論，甚至發表一個一部關于這些假化石的著作。
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.
他的同事最后出來澄清事實，可是他還是不相信他們，還把他們叫做不可知論者。最終其中兩個同事在法庭上證言，因為勃林格教授太自負，他們只是想讓勃林格教授丟臉。勃林格教授才相信這是一場惡作劇。勃林格教授為了購買收回已經自己已經發表的荒誕著作幾乎破產。而這些石頭也以“說謊的石頭”而聞名。
The Brooklyn Bridge – For Sale布魯克林大橋待售
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.
喬治•帕克能賣任何還沒賣掉的東西——不，等等，他也賣板上釘釘有主的東西，實際上是確定以及肯定已經有主的東西。他在大宗不動產交易中欺騙了紐約的一家公司。這些交易里包括布魯克林大橋、自由女神像、格蘭特墓、麥迪遜花園廣場和大都會藝術博物館。他能讓買家相信他們創造了歷史甚至偽造了一些令人非常信服的所有權證件。有句俗話叫“只要你信，我就可以把布魯克林大橋賣給你。”就是從這里來的。在所有的買賣里，據說僅布魯克林大橋他就一周里“賣”了兩次。但他僅僅以詐騙罪被審判過三次。
