water

I used to believe that there was an off switch to the ocean so that it could go to sleep at night.

Anon

I used to believe until about 5 minutes ago when I read that someone else had the same belief, that the sky was blue because it reflected the ocean. I too, was told this by a teacher who even used a theory about water, air, and light molecules reflecting off each other creating the effect. I am astounded. I am 34 years old.

I also used to believe that teachers could be trusted.

Jude Horrocks

When i was a little kid, i used to go to the beach often in the summer, and reasoned that the ocean waves were what caused the earth to rotate. I therefore concluded that by getting in the way of the waves (swimming) i was making summer last a little longer.

Mike

When I was little, I had a debilitating fear of sharks, so whenever I would go to the beach, I would sit on the shore and refuse to go in the water with the other kids. To fix this, my parents told me that every beach has a net around it to keep the sharks out, but fish and dolphins could get through. I believed this about all beaches until I was about 18 years old. How they explained it made a lot of sense...

E

when i was 8 i read that all the water in the world is reused all the time, and I assumed that ocean water, which had touched giant squids, had been reused as the water in my shower.
I was terrified to take showers because the water had touched giant squids before, and washed myself in the sink (including my hair). My brother found out I had been washing my hair in the sink, and when I told him why he cracked up and teased me about it relentlessly until I got annoyed and took normal showers again.

Jennifer

That the rivers stopped flowing at night!

Louise

When I was younger I used to go the beach a lot and everytime I picked up a shell near the ocean it would make a loud noise. I thought it was angry that I was trying to take one of its shells so I always put it back.

Alexandra

My sister belived there was a giant toad under waterfalls that would grab you and pull you under water if you got to close.... it was the under toad

Zeppy

My mum told me that there were dangerous currents in rivers and from then on I always looked for currants(the berries) floating around in the water!

lucy

I used to believe that some puddles had bottoms and if you jumped in others you'd fall forever and ever.

abi

When I was little me and my twin brother used to think people would drive big trucks into the ocean and poor salt in the ocean.

Temple and Jack

When I was younger, I always thought that the name of the ocean was floating in the water, like you see on maps. You know, ATLANTIC OCEAN, in huge letters, anchored to the sea floor, that you can see when you are flying across the oceans. I was a junior in high school when i was set straight.

Anon

When i was little i some how started believing that when i went to the beach, i could make the waves become higher if i started to slap the waves and start telling them that "You are pathetic waves! You not even making me fall over! What was that? You make me sick! That bearly went over my knees!"

I thought the waves would get angry and get bigger.

madie bolles

At the ocean's horizon there was a giant waterfall.

Stephanie

My friends and I used to volunteer at the court house, well they always have water for you to drink and somehow the conversation came up where on of my friends was talking about the ocean. My friend goes on to say you better taste the water in the pitcher because it has been sitting there for awhile and the other girl says, "Yeah you wouldn't want to drink stale water, thats why the ocean is so salty." We were 16 years old and my friend thought the ocean was salty because the water was stale.

Anon

When I was about 8 or 9 I asked my brother why there were always big storms at the Cape of Good Hope (I think we had been watching some adventure film about Pirates). He proceeded to give me a long and detailed explanation. Apparently the Atlantic Ocean was actually 32 feet higher than the Pacific Ocean. Where the two Oceans met, this large gap resulted in violent crashing of waves as the waters came together.
Completely plausible and beleived by me for many years.

Taity

When I was on holiday with my parents once, we saw a flooded quarry. I asked why nobody was swimming in it and my mother told me it was too deep to swim in. For years I believed that there was some depth at which water became too deep to swim in and you would simply sink to the bottom. Even now I'm wary of swimming in deep lakes!

Sarah

When we would go to the beach we used to play in the waves. my brother told me they were whales. and i got so freaked out every time a wave came, i jumped as high as i could, not wanting to hurt the whales. boy , it was hard to keep up sometimes.

Casey

I used to think that whenever we were out on our boat and we hit a really big bump, that we were hitting the parts of the rockets that fell off the space shuttle and fell into the ocean.

Anon

I got a mouth full of ocean water in my mouth when I was three or four, and quickly asked my parents who put the salt in the water. I also developed my own theories. I used to believe that the reason why the ocean was salty is because people would lean off the docks and pour table salt in the water.

Liz