When I was young, about 8 or so we rescued a turtle off the side of the road. I few weeks later my mom came in the house and told him he "ran away." Obviously for some reason I believed her even though turtles are known for how slow they are. I am now 23 and my mom and I were talking about funny stories and she brought up how she ran over my turtle with the lawn mower. She thought I knew.

Danielle

My brother use to chase me around with a shark book and try to stuff this huge blown up picture of a shark in my face all of the time and I'd always scream and run away. I was terrified of the pool, always thinking that somehow magically a shark would come out and eat me, especially in the night time for some reason. I also thought, i don't know where this even came from, that military helicopters would fly over my pool and drop "testing" sharks in my pool for some reason. And sometimes I would take late night showers, and I could never be in the shower at 12 o clock because I always thought that a shark would bust through the wall at that exact time with tsunami water and get me.

Anon

i used to believe that pools had underwater doors that sharks were going to swim out of.

marky

When I was 6 or 7 we had a pet tortoise who had previously belonged to my Aunt. One day my parents told me it was taken to the Zoo because the Zoo didn't have one. Turns out he died during hibernation and was thrown in a rubbish skip. I'm 21 now and believed the Zoo story up until about a month ago!

Chris

I used to believe that warehouses had werewolves in them. That made me scared to go to warehouses.

Kaitlin

When i was in elementary school a girl from my class told me that she heard that if farmers dont milk there cows, the cows will go caboom, and all the milk would fly everywhere! I believed her for about two years...

Lauren

When I was really young my dad told me that the bails of hay that cows eat were cow eggs. I didn't believe this until I saw a Cow standing next to one in a field. Lucky I only believed this for about a year.

Finch

I used to believe I was a dinosaur when I was younger because I never got sick and was always stronger than everyone else. I Don't know why I associated reptile like creatures to never getting sick but I did!

Drea

When I was little, in the 80's, fur coats were still very popular for women, even in the relatively mild climate of central Maryland. My mom badly wanted one, but we couldn't really afford it (and I gave her a very hard time about wearing a dead animal, even at the age of 5).
She would still look every time we were in a coat store, and so I would follow her through the racks, touching each one, because I liked how soft the fur was, even if I didn't approve.
She pulled one floor length coat off the rack, held it up, and said "This one is Australian opposum". Knowing that North American possums are fairly small animals, and not understanding that multiple pelts got sewn together, my eyes got huge and I said "How big do they get there?" She laughed til her face turned red and she had tears streaming down her cheeks.

SH

When driving through Maryland, my Dad and I would see a lot of cows. I was so upset one day because I thought they would all be turned into hamburgers. My Dad told me they only use completely black cows for hamburgers (apparently there is no such thing!). When I saw a black cow, and was upset, he told me he saw some white on it, so it was safe. I believed that one until I was 14!

Anon

I cried for a couple of days, throwing terrible tantrums until my parents decided to grill me until they could figure out my problem.

I finally discovered my horse wasn't actually being broken into bits, but would rather come home "broken" to ride.

Jen D

My Dad was a farmer. To keep me out of the farrowing house and away from the aggressive sows, he told us that the rats would run up our pant legs and bite our knees.

I was terrified of rats for years. Although I'd still sneak into the farrowing house to see the cute piglets - I'd just keep an eye out for rats.

Jen

When my husband and I first met he shared with me that he believed all zebra's were extinct. He had never seen one and would not believe me until I took him to the zoo and physically made him look at one.

White or Black Stripes