disasters

I used to beleive that earthquakes were monsters like spiders who lived under the ground and the hills were the bends in their legs

Wendy

After I first saw those gruesomely fascinating pictures of ancient people (but who looked like us) caught in the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii, I thought that lava was a magical substance that could immediately turn you to stone just by touching your toe.

Boethe

when i was little theres was a tornado in our town.... it was zig-zaging all over my mom said "wow that tornado has a mind of its own....so i always thought there was like alittle brain the the center controling its every turn and decided wic houses to take out

Anon

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 in kindergarten, a boy in my class told me that the rubber button-looking thing on the wall in the bathroom was an earthquake button. He said that if there was an earthquake, you push it in and it would keep the walls from falling down. It never occurred to me to question that, until many years later (I'm embarrassed to admit how old I was) when someone said something to me about the rubber doorstop. Before I could stop the words from coming out, I said, "Oh, that's what that is? I thought it was an earthquake button." Needless to say, I earned myself quite a lot of teasing for that one!

Amy

As a child I was always frightened when we went camping, as we had to drive through a canyon to get to our usual spot. I was convinced a large rock was going to detach itself from the canyon wall and crush our car. I wasn't afraid of real canyon dangers, such as a flood or landslide, just a huge random boulder.

Still don't like canyons

When i was younger i used belive that seat belts in the car were for to protect you from flying out the window. If you took them off and the window was open, you would fly out. I belived this untill i was 9

Anon

I thought tornados were monsters,and that they called out the national guard to destroy it.

Ben J.Grimm

i used to think that if a person put their finger on a globe a huge finger would come down ansd like smush everything... fina;;y i got up the courage to put my finger down and wher i was living when nothing happened i stoped beleiving it!

Anon

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 a kid and saw floodings on TV with poor peoples houses under water, I found it super cool and wished the same happen to me, because I would be able to swim from my room to the kitchen and back to the living room

RC

I used to believe that during an earthquake, little lawn gnomes were on little ladders, shaking my house. Like literally surrounding my house and they would just hug the house and shake shake shake.

k

I used to think the Earth was going to explode eventually. I was certain because if I put my ear to the floor, I heard a deep low rumbling. It was a serious sound to my inexperienced ears.

a former child

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 young I came to a conclusion after watching my mice run around in their wheel that the reason the earth goes around is because we walk on it. In other words, we stay in one spot and the earth moves underneath us. This theory worked well when it came to explaining earthquakes: They are cause by too many people walking in different directions at the same time.

Saskia K

I used to believe earthquakes were caused by another planet striking ours. I lived in terror that we would be crushed one day by that other planet.

Anon

When I was little, I used to think that during an earthquake, the reason the bed would shake was because my sister was messing with me. I would yell to my parents to come and get my sister out from under my bed.

Garry

When I first learned about the hole in the ozone layer, I thought it was a big hole in the earth. I thought people were throwing thier trash in it and when they did a big earthquake would cause it to grow bigger.

Anon

I used to think that a tornado was a tomato and lots of tomato juice would got flying around.

sam

Alright...so when I was little, I must have had tornados mixedup with TOMATOES. So everytime there was supposedly tornadoes, I envisioned giant tomatoes with big shoes coming and stomping all the houses.

Ali H.