Do evanescent waves contribute to the far field?

Evanescent waves have become of considerable interest in recent years because of developments in near-field optics. Claims have been made that such waves contribute to the radiation fields of sources and to the far fields of scatterers. We show, by considering a spherical scalar wave and a linear electric dipole field, that these claims are misleading and that such contributions are without physical consequences. Our conclusions apply to a much broader class of fields than those considered in this Letter.