Spook Spoof at Cambridge
Spook Spoof at Cambridge is an article published in the Daily Express on 25 november 1921.
Spook Spoof at Cambridge
WHY SIR A. CONAN DOYLE DID NOT "MATERIALISE."
"Daily Express" Correspondent.
Cambridge, Thursday.
Cambridge has been extensively placarded for some days with the announcement that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would attend a meeting of the Anglo-American Psychological Society at the Guildhall to-night and speak on "the visualisation of materialisation."
The announcement drew an audience which packed the hall. Medical students came in strong force with the avowed object of providing manifestations.
The meeting was announced to begin 8.30, but when nine o'clock came and there were no signs of a chairman or speakers, the audience of town and gownsmen became restive.
A smiling undergraduate then emerged from behind a screen on the platform carrying a white banner, which he unfurled and displayed the words:— "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has failed to materialise."
Some time elapsed before the astonished audience realised that they had been hoaxed, and then there was an uproar.
"We want spirits," they shouted and a sepulchral voice replied, "Whisky."
Disorder impressed and amid a scene of wild horseplay the lights gradually turned out and the meeting dispersal.
No clue to the identity of the persons who originated the hoax ran be discovered.
