After studying meteors at school I was sure that a meteor was going to land on our house. After a week of sleepless nights my mum asked my teacher to tell us that this is very unlikely to actually happen.

Cath

I never realized that hurricanes were named as they started to form. It confused me as a kid when hurricane Gloria was coming - how did they know it was Gloria? Was there a certain way the wind blew that determined it was Gloria and not, say Andrew?

Annie

When I was quite young, I'm guessing about 6, there was a tornado warning in our county so we were in the basement until it passed. However since I was so young, I made a connection between tornato and potato. So I started wondering why a potato swirling around on the ground was so dangerous. I was picturing a large potato bumping into things on the ground!

Kristen

When I was little I was convinced that I was Dorothy Gale from "The Wizard of Oz". I live in the midwestern United States and we get tornados frequently, but I wasn't afraid of them at all. When we were put under tornado warnings I would run out side and sing "somewhere over the rainbow" hoping that the people of Oz would hear me (their beloved Dorothy) and bring me back to see them.

Dorothy

(Stepdaughter, at age 7, when she came to live with us)

"Did you know that if you throw a pebble in a volcano it will explode?"

Took a lot of convincing that her 9 yr old pal wasn't the smartest in the world.

S

When I was about four years old, I remember my family was always talking about hurricanes coming, because a few years before, hurricane Hugo had hit us and they were waiting for the next big one. I didn't remember Hugo because I was little then, but when hurricane season came and they showed the satelite views of the hurricanes on the news, I thought that when a hurricane came, I could look at the window and see the exact same round, white image from the TV rolling down the street, and that it would be about ten feet high and harmless. So, to everybody's shock, I always kept repeating that I wanted a hurricane to come so that I could see it. It wasn't until a few years later, when hurricane George hit Puerto Rico straight on, that I stopped believing that, realizing that a hurricane was much worst than I thought and why everybody in the island is so affraid of them.

Romy

I used to believe a tornado was a omato flying around and wondered why people were afraid of them.

Anon

I used to belive that there was somewhat a high presure tomato soup groung inside the Earth, and that some times, when it became really hot, it would cause that soup to get released. That's what people called a volcano. I was four years at the time..

colari

I used to believe that inside each volcano there was a guy who'd press a button to make it erupt.

Jim, UK

When I was little, I read or someone told me that the sun will eventually burn the earth and then the whole world would then become cold because there was no more sun. That bothered me so I tried to think of a really good plan to save everybody. What I thought about was building a big huge refrigerator and have everyone in it. We'll have all the food we want and everyone would live!!

Pamela B. (California)

I used to believe that when there was an earthquake, rocks would fall from the sky.

Nai

Until I was in 3rd grade, I used to always make sure that I slept with my back facing the window during tornado season, even though tornades were fairly uncommon in my area, they still happened, so I wanted to be sure that a tornado didn't happen while I was sleeping and facing the window, because glass pieces would fly into my eyes and blind me!

Of corse, I think if there were a tornado while I was sleeping, I'd know, and my window and where I slept on my bed where about 8 feet apart...

Amanda

When I was a little boy, I slept on my side with the pillow between my arm and head. I use to believe that when I put my head on my pillow I could hear the rustling of the poly foam. I that it was the sound of an impending earthquake. I would not be able to sleep until I rolled over and did not hear the sound any longer.

J Kelly

When i was little my imagination was and still is very vivid. so i had a huge fear of Natural disatars and i would literally see lava flowing outside my house i used to get so scared to where i couldnt breathe.

Brie