When I was five, I asked my mum how the street lamps came on on their own. My mum looked at me then she looked up at a lamp and said "You see those little knobs on the top of each one, well, as it's getting dark the birds come along and peck those knobs which are the light switches". I believed the seagulls turned on all street lamps until I was nearly twelve, when I asked "how do the birds know when to turn the lights off again?" As soon as I said it the penny dropped! She'll never let me forget it.

Fiona smillie (15) Bristol

I used to believe that the street lights around the country were all operated on one switch, and that when dusk came, Princess Diana would flick the switch and make all the street lights come on.

creepylesbo

I used to believe that war memorials were 'warmer morials', and they were meeting places outside where you stood around to keep warm with your friends on a particularly cold Winter's day

lu

I used to believe that the highway signs reading "No Littering up to $100 fine" meant that if you found some litter and turned it in, you could get up to $100....even though it was "fine" and not "found" or "if found"... I assured myself this was a mere grammatical error...and always kept my eyes peeled for trash.

Jessica

I used to believe that streetlights were positioned along roads in such a way that they made lit up pictures that you could see from the sky at night!!

Chelsi

When I was little I loved playing in the park near my house, but when it was time to go home I never wanted to leave, so my mother told me that the park was going to close. When I heard that I pictured a giant glass dome falling from the sky trapping kids who stayed in the park for too long for eternity. I would run for my life when she told me the park was closing!

Jasmin and Ayesha B.

My birthday is June 14th. Here in the US that is also flag day. Growing up on my birthday everyone would put out their flags on their houses, cars or whatever. My parents told me they did that because it was my birthday. Until I was 10 I believed them

Mike D

when I was a kid, I used to hear the trash collecters come by in the middle of the night. The screech of the metal and crash of the recepticles on the concrete would always wake me up. I was convinced that dinosaurs must be pillaging through the neighborhood, and I was the only one awake to hear them.

judy

I used to know a girl at school who'd been told when she was very young that cats eyes in the road were gnomes under the road with torches who had to run along and shine their torches through the holes as you drive along.

Anon

You know the stickers on mailboxes that say "Strictly no leaflets"? I used to believe that meant they didn't want little leaves in their yard, so I'd pick up a bunch off the footpath, and throw them over the fence, then walk off quickly!! I could also never work out why they didn't get rid of all the leaves already in their yard :-)

Jake, Brisbane Australia

Some of my friends and I in kindergarten during recess found a photo of a couple naked people. We found the photo near a drain in the ground, so somehow we concluded that there was a place underground where a bunch of naked people lived.

ngb

When my dad was a little kid he thought that there was a person in the basement that would stack the steps back up for the escalator.

Sean, Illinois

I used to believe that the dark, trench-coated, hat-wearing figure with slanted glowing eyes on “Neighborhood Watch” signs was actually a member of the neighborhood watch. I envisioned him as a stealthy crime-fighter, cloaked in black and sneaking around the neighborhood after sunset to keep an eye out for criminals. I assumed his picture was on the signs as a deterrent so burglars would know he was watching from the shadows with his piercing white eyes, waiting to pounce the moment they broke the law. I also deduced that each neighborhood had their own “Watcher” since the signs were everywhere. At some point it occurred to me that the drawing was actually the caricature of a thief – the kind of people the neighborhood was watching out for rather than a neighborhood superhero.

R.J.B.

k, so you could get to my house 2 ways. you could go by the Clark gas station or go by the Shell. Well, i thoughyt the gas stations swiched places depending on the day. I never relized, for a long time, that i could go home 2 ways.

BB

When I was little I thought that a pair of smoke stacks (which were part of a factory a few miles away) was actually Cinderella's castle. I could never quite understand why my parents would never take me there if we were so close.

Shannon S.

When I saw a sign that said "Open 7 days", I used to get confused, because I knew the place had been open for longer than one week.

Justin

One time I was walking with my mom and saw footprints in the cement. I asked her, "How did they get their foot print in there?" She replied, "Because they stepped on the cement when it was wet." Oooh. So for the longest time after that, every time it rained, I would stomp the ground, hoping to leave an imprint. Since I never could do it, I reasoned that it must be because I was still a child and was too light to sink into the cement.

Takara

Wherever you walked, you left behind an invisible string, marking your trail. I always tried to avoid tangling up my own strings.

Richard, London England

When I was a child, I thought the double yellow lines in the middle of highways were for motocycles to travel between and cars had to stay to the right or left of "the motorcycle lane". I was completely disgusted with my father when he got too close to that lane, because he was putting the motorcycle drivers in danger. I remember thinking he was a terrible driver.

Sue

i used to think that if you went to high on a swingset and went all the way around the beam you'd turn inside out.

Anon