a friend of mine once told me that the universe was infinite. When i asked him to elaborate his explantation he told me that if i just kept thinking about it my head would explode. i took him completely seriously and during science lessons would sometimes burst into tears at being forced to contemplate space.

Anon

I used to monitor clear starry night skies very closely because I was sure if I looked hard enough that I would see Star Wars-styled space battles with lasers and everything. I can remember borrowing my dad's binoculars and just staring out my window for HOURS, dude!

Anon

I used to think that stars were just big holes in a shoe box, a shoe box that we all lived in as pets of a huge giant. Every day when the sun came out that would be him taking the top off of the box and shinning a light in on us all to watch us. At night he closed the lid when he went to bed, but being the nice giant he was left us little air holes as stars so that we could breathe. The moon was our night light, which some nights he forgot to turn on

Jenn

Like kids everywhere in the English-speaking world, I knew the rhyme "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" from early childhood. Except to me the word 'twinkle' meant not only the light stars gave off, but also the sound!

I was living in the Caribbean, where there were treefrogs singing every night. Now, our particular variety of treefrog made a very pretty, high-pitched sound, just the sort of sound you'd think the word 'twinkling' described. They were also just small, dull grey splotches about the size of a child's fingernail, very very hard to spot at night; and they never came out and sang until after dark, when the stars had come out too. And since I'd never seen a treefrog...of course that was the noise of the stars. Why would there be a nursery rhyme about it otherwise?

Not only did I never question this as a child, I didn't find out the error of my ways until I was 16, when we moved to London. One day I moaned to my mother that you couldn't hear the stars twinkle in the city.... It took her ages to work out what I was talking about!

gloriana

I used to believe that I lived in a town called Germany in a country called Earth, but I just could not figure out what planet I was on. I asked my mom what the name of the planet was and she replied "Earth" and I remember thinking that she was a total idiot. I just walked off and concluded that I was on Pluto, that being the only planet name I could remember.

Mallory

When I was very young I was warned not to look at the sky during an upcoming solar eclipse. If I did, I would instantly go blind. I made a blindfold from an old tee shirt and gave it to my father to use while driving his car to work that day.

BillB

I used to believe that stars chirped because they would twinkle simultaneously to crickets chirping

alex

When I was a child I lived in the Caribbean and I loved looking at the stars. I was sure I could hear the stars twinkleing. I t was only 4 years ago when as a very grown adult my cousin Mandy took great delight in saying, " It is not the stars you idiot! It is the sounds that the frogs and the crickets are making" She was right.

Jasmine

I used to believe that the stars sang. When they came out in the evening, the chirping would begin; first one star, then two, then a whole host of them, chirping to different rythms, then for one breathtaking moment, singing in unison. The songs used to have words in my head, little repeated phrases like "flower pretty" or "Standard Oil." (I remember being amazed that the stars knew my Daddy was a pilot for Standard Oil. How did they know that?)

I was living in California. Later I found out the sounds I was hearing were made by crickets that came out to chirp as the sun set. I still cherish the sound of crickets today.

Indi Young

My 3 year old niece wanted to know what color her swing set was. She was told it had been red but that the sun faded it out. She tells the sun every day that her favorite color is purple in the belief that the sun will change it to that color.

Katybug

I used to think that the moving lights in the night sky were the stars being moved around to keep the sky more interesting.

I didn't know they were airplanes.

MaddMatt - Steely-Eyed Warrior/Poet

I used to believe that each person/family in the world lived on a different planet in the solar system. My family and I, for example, lived on Earth, while my friend lived on the moon. Another friend of mine then, quite obviously, lived on Mars, and so on. I realised this was wrong when I noticed I was able to visit my friends at their houses without any help from NASA.

Anon

I used to believe that sattelite dishes were used to shot down falling meteors that fell to earth.

Anon

I remember watching a television show about how SOMEDAY the sun would turn into a red giant and burn the Earth up.

Well, I thought that meant like NEXT WEEK, so for days I kept glancing at the sun through squinted eyes to see if it was getting bigger.

Anon

My brother and I used to believe that the Moon had invisible legs. When riding in the back seat with our parents, we were always amazed how the Moon was able to keep up and we could never see it's legs.

Mike Davis

When I was a kid, I thought the stars in the sky at night, were the balloons people let go.

Lisa

When I was very young my Grandfather told me how the moon was made of Green Cheese. My evil older sister told me how the moon was important to life everywhere, and if it wasn't here we would all die. She also told me everytime I ate cheese from earth, I was taking it away from the moon, and if I ate too much cheese, the world would colapse. She was always mean.

greg

My sister and I believed that we lived inside the earth and that when they sent shuttles into space someone would have to go up on a giant ladder to patch the hole in the sky.

Cindy

I used to think that the planets were really expensive airplanes, and they all had rings which were the decks to the plane. I couldn't wait until I was older and rich enough to travel on a planet. And I thought everyone would go out on the decks as we sailed through the sky, to have drinks and snacks.

k8y

When I was a kid, I thought the stars made the chirping noise the crickets make at night, The twinkling seemed to blend with the chirping, so I naturally thougth the stars made the noise.

Jim