In 2014, the internet basically had a collective meltdown over a series of blurry, glowing images. They weren't of a celebrity or a UFO. They were fairies. Or, well, that's what John Hyatt claimed. Hyatt, who was the Director of the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation (MIRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University, didn't just stumble onto these; he spent two years snapping shots in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire. He called them the diamond fairy photos because of the way the light shimmered off their tiny, translucent wings.
People were skeptical. Obviously. But there was something about Hyatt’s credentials that made folks pause. This wasn't some kid with a Photoshop trial. This was a university lecturer.
The Rossendale Valley Incident
Hyatt’s collection, titled "Rossendale Fairies," went on display at the Whitaker Museum in Rawtenstall. It was a sensation. You’ve probably seen the photos—tiny, humanoid shapes with what looks like fluttering wings, suspended in the golden hour light of the English countryside. Hyatt was dead serious about it. He told the Manchester Evening News that the creatures looked nothing like the common midges or flies usually found in the area.
He didn't claim they had magic wands. He didn't say they lived in flower petals. He just said they were there.
"Everything is seen through the lens of what we believe," Hyatt once remarked during the height of the media frenzy. It’s a wild thought. If you go looking for flies, you see flies. If you go looking for something more ethereal, maybe your camera catches something else. The diamond fairy photos weren't just about biology; they were about the limits of human perception.
The technical side of things is where it gets crunchy. Hyatt used a high-speed camera to capture the motion. When you freeze a tiny insect in mid-flight at a specific shutter speed, the wings blur in a way that can look remarkably like arms and legs. To the skeptics, it was a simple case of motion blur and "pareidolia"—that’s the psychological phenomenon where your brain sees faces in clouds or Jesus in a piece of toast. But Hyatt countered this by showing photos of flies and gnats taken at the same time. They looked different. They looked like... well, bugs. The "fairies" had a distinct, shimmering quality that he couldn't easily explain away.
Why the World Went Wild
Why do we care?
📖 Related: The A Wrinkle in Time Cast: Why This Massive Star Power Didn't Save the Movie
Honestly, the world feels pretty flat sometimes. We have GPS, satellite imagery, and a million sensors tracking every inch of the globe. The idea that there might be a "hidden" species living right in our backyards is intoxicating. It taps into that Cottingley Fairies nostalgia from the early 1900s, where two young girls fooled the world—including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—with cardboard cutouts.
But Hyatt wasn't using cutouts. He was using light.
The diamond fairy photos resonated because they weren't trying to sell a hoax. Hyatt admitted they might just be a biological quirk he didn't understand yet. He invited people to look with an open mind. This wasn't a "gotcha" moment; it was an invitation to wonder. The photos are strangely beautiful. They have this ethereal, gossamer quality. Even if you’re a hardline materialist who thinks it’s all just Chironomidae (that’s the fancy name for non-biting midges), you have to admit the visual effect is stunning.
The Science of Seeing Small Things
Let’s talk about optics for a second. When a small object is out of the focal plane and hit by backlighting, it undergoes "bokeh." The light wraps around the edges. If an insect is flapping its wings at hundreds of beats per second, a 1/2000th of a second shutter speed might still not be fast enough to "freeze" the anatomy perfectly.
What you get is a composite.
- The body of the insect becomes the "torso."
- The wing sweep becomes the "limbs."
- The sunlight diffraction creates a "glow."
Entomologists were quick to weigh in. Many pointed out that certain species of midges perform "mating dances" in the air. When they do this, they hang almost vertically. To a camera lens, this looks like a tiny person standing upright.
👉 See also: Cuba Gooding Jr OJ: Why the Performance Everyone Hated Was Actually Genius
But here is the kicker: Hyatt knew this. He wasn't ignorant of entomology. He simply argued that the sheer variety of forms he captured didn't fit the singular profile of local insects. He believed he had captured a "shimmer" of life that exists on a different frequency or scale than what we typically acknowledge.
Comparing Rossendale to Cottingley
You can't talk about the diamond fairy photos without bringing up Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths. In 1917, those two girls created the ultimate fairy hoax. They used hatpins and paper clippings. It took decades for them to admit it.
The difference here is the medium.
Hyatt’s photos are digital. They are raw. There’s no evidence of "pasting" or "layering" in the traditional sense. If it’s a trick, it’s a trick of the light, not a trick of the hand. That distinction matters. It moves the conversation from "Is he a liar?" to "What is the camera actually seeing?"
Some people think the fairies are interdimensional. Others think they are a form of plasma. Some think they're just bugs. The beauty of the Rossendale incident is that it sits right in the middle of that Venn diagram. It’s "lifestyle" meets "science" meets "the paranormal." It’s basically the perfect viral storm.
How to Capture Your Own "Fairy" Images
If you want to try and replicate the diamond fairy photos, you don't need a PhD. You need a golden hour.
✨ Don't miss: Greatest Rock and Roll Singers of All Time: Why the Legends Still Own the Mic
Go out when the sun is low—about an hour before sunset. You want the light coming from behind your subject (backlighting). Find a patch of water or a damp field where insects congregate. Set your camera to a fast shutter speed, but not so fast that it kills the motion. 1/500 or 1/1000 is a good starting point.
- Use a macro lens if you have one.
- Focus on a point in the air where the "clouds" of gnats are hovering.
- Underexpose slightly to make the highlights (the wings) pop against the dark background.
- Look for the "shimmer."
You’ll find that the results are actually quite magical. You’ll see shapes that look like dancers, spirits, or tiny athletes. Does this prove fairies exist? No. But it proves that the natural world is much more visually complex than we give it credit for.
The Lasting Legacy of the Manchester Fairies
John Hyatt passed away in 2021. He left behind a legacy that is half-art, half-mystery. He never recanted. He never said, "Oh, it was just a prank." He remained convinced that he’d seen something special in the Rossendale Valley.
The diamond fairy photos continue to circulate in paranormal forums and art galleries alike. They serve as a reminder that even in a digital age, we can still be surprised. We still want to believe. We want the world to be bigger and weirder than our textbooks say it is.
The reality of these photos isn't necessarily about finding proof of the supernatural. It’s about the fact that a man looked at a fly and saw a fairy, and for a few years, he convinced a lot of other people to look at the world with that same sense of enchantment.
To dig deeper into this yourself, start by examining the original Whitaker Museum exhibition notes if you can find them in digital archives. Look closely at the wing structures in Hyatt's photos and compare them to high-speed macro photography of the Delphacidae family or common gnats. You’ll find that while the biological explanations are strong, the visual "coincidence" required to create those humanoid shapes is remarkably rare. Take your own camera into a wooded area at dusk and experiment with backlighting and motion blur; observing how light interacts with translucent membranes in real-time is the only way to truly understand the visual artifacts Hyatt captured. Visit the Rossendale Valley if you're ever in Lancashire; the specific geography and humidity of the area create unique atmospheric conditions that contribute to these optical phenomena.