25 Dumb Lies That People Believed For The Longest Time

In a Reddit thread sparked by the initiative of a user known as lilCRONOS, a fascinating conversation has unfolded. Participants are exchanging anecdotes about the most absurd notions they were once persuaded to believe were true, only to later uncover their complete falsehood. 

#1 Not intentionally, but for a long time as a young kid I thought women with dark eyebrows and blonde hair were robots or androids or whatever.

Image source: Salzberger, Brian Lawson / unsplash (not the actual photo)

I heard my mum and dad saying that someone on TV was fake or not real or something to that effect. When I asked why, they said her eyebrows are black and her hair is blonde. Whatever the terminology was, it was unclear to me they were talking about her hair colour not being real, I just assumed it was a giveaway to know who weren’t real humans.

#2 My older sibling would never let me drink 7up…because I was only 6 years old.

Image source: daxter106

#3 When I was little my sister told me tofu was koala meat and I believed it for years.

Image source: falaffels, Sherman Kwan / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#4 That the red triangle (hazard lights) in a car is an eject button for the kids in the back seat. Truly believed that was a great call for crashes or whatever. My dad told me that if we were too annoying on long car rides he would eject us via red button.

Image source: VegetableBeneficial, Mpho Mojapelo / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#5 Many years ago when my little sister and I were between 8-10, we were listening to Christmas music while decorating the tree. The Little Drummer Boy sang about performing for the newborn king, telling us “the ox and lamb kept time” while he played. Little sister asked me to explain what this meant.

Image source: PotatoWithFlippers, Christopher Carson / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Very seriously, I informed her that when barn animals hear music, they instinctively tap their feet. This helped the Little Drummer Boy keep the beat while he played for Jesus. She accepted this new piece of wisdom as fact and carried on.

A decade later we were sitting at Christmas dinner with the whole family which now included little sister’s fiancé. Little Drummer Boy played on the radio and she looked to her future husband and said, “did you know when barn animals hear music, they instinctively tap their feet?”

He laughed hysterically, calamity ensued, and I had to run for cover. Worth it. Pa rum pum pum pum.

#6 When I was a young kid my dad was watching a news segment about funding for NASA. They showed an astronaut strapping into some sort of training device against a wall that began rotating him like a clock. He was spinning faster and faster. The news overlaid an image of a spinning dollar bill which then slowed and came to a stop.

Image source: batseverywherebats, Alexander Grey / unsplash (not the actual photo)

For adults, it was a visual metaphor for the cost of NASA.

For me, it was a demonstration how money is made by spinning people until they turn into money.

#7 When I was a kid we had this brush in the car, the kind for getting snow off the windows in the winter, and I asked my mom what it was.

Image source: Strobro3, Nam Anh / unsplash (not the actual photo)

She told me it was an elephant toothbrush, and that we used to have an elephant, for her that was just a silly joke, but my 6 year old brain never questioned the fact that we used to own an elephant.

A few years later, I must have been more like 9, I brought it up to my mom; something about it didn’t make sense. How did we feed this thing? Where did we keep it? How did we afford an elephant? Where did it come from? What did we do with it in the winter?

My mom, had entirely forgot she ever told me that, and never realized I had been left to believe we owned an elephant.

lol.

#8 Told my kid that the squooshy stuff they felt when picking their nose was brains, worked a treat til they got a bad cold and had a meltdown in class that their brains were falling out. Fun meeting with the teacher.

Image source: Kaja8948, MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo)

#9 My mum told me that if you fall down a sewer manhole then you turn into a ninja turtle, I was scared because I did not want to leave home and do ninja turtle stuff and also wanted my body to be human but now it would be nice to be a ninja turtle because I would not have to deal with life.

Image source: LaundryMan2008, Yeshi Kangrang / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#10 My father used to have a “turbo button” in his car that he’d pressed to make the car go faster. Dumb a*s kid me didn’t know it was the ac button, so when the air would hit my face while seeing the car move, I thought we were flying. Coolest s**t ever until I grew older and realized lol.

Image source: BurnerAccount337, Abdulvahap Demir / pexels (not the actual photo)

#11 I thought that men had one less rib than women. I believe I was told this by Sunday school teachers and my parents and believed this until my girlfriend in college told me that it was not true at all.

Image source: omahaspeedster, Ta Z / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#12 My cousins told me that in the Blackpool Tower kids play area, the Jungle Gym I think it was called, that if you jumped in a specific spot in the ball pool you’d go through a trap door into a secret room. Spent the whole of the time we were in there on a school trip trying to find it and didn’t have time for anything else. Bastards ?.

Image source: Mistermatt91, Katherine Ann Hartlef Villers / pexels (not the actual photo)

#13 That the black dots on a ladybug tell the number of years they’re old. I was already 15 when I figured it out lol.

Image source: SprinklesAea, Vincent van Zalinge / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#14 The holes in saltine crackers were made by trained wasps. I believed this for a good few years.

Image source: Polluxi, Anita Peeples / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#15 I asked my sister what the small brown round things i saw in the fruit aisle were and she told me they were goat balls. Later found out they were kiwis.

Image source: AcceptableSample9636, Alejandro Duarte / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#16 That working hard in corporate America actually gets you anywhere.

Image source: BeatRealistic1927, Arlington Research / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#17 Well I didn’t find out until a few years ago that narwhals are real and not mythical. I’m 35.

Image source: darkestirony, пресс-служба / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)

#18 When I was about 5, my dad told me that if I put salt on a birds tail, I could pick it up and hold it. I ran around throwing salt at birds for years before I realized he had been f*****g with me.

Image source: Ok_Possession4936, Francesco Alberti / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#19 Not me but a pal of mine, it’s one of the greatest misleadings I’ve ever heard of. Her older brother told her that seagulls and bats were the same animal, seagulls by day, bats by night. She believed it for years and years, until she confidently told some friends and they all said, “…what?? Are you stupid!” Hahhaha, fantastic deception.

Image source: King_Swass, Peter F. Wolf / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#20 That my dog went to live on a farm.

Image source: Agreeable_Steak7189, Pauline Loroy / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#21 I thought that if you touched a frog or toad, you’d get warts. This led to an irrational fear of amphibians until high school biology class set me straight.

Image source: No_Educator_834, Thomas Oxford / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#22 Yellow tomato sauce.

Image source: TheAnxiousTumshie, Addilyn Ragsdill @clockworklemon.com / unsplash (not the actual photo)

When I was about 8 or 9, mum forgot to order a mcDs plain so she said it was yellow tomato sauce from the tomatoes like my grandad grew. I moved out at 18 and went shopping for the first time. Wanted to make a ‘real’ burger. Couldn’t find it anywhere. Called mum; 22 years later she’s still laughing.

#23 My dad would tell me he can make red lights turn green just by pressing the garage door opener. I didn’t believe him but every time he did it, it worked. Still didn’t believe him but I couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.

Image source: Tru-Queer, Paul Volkmer / unsplash (not the actual photo)

When I got older and learned to drive, I realized he was just looking at the other lights in the intersection to time out when to press the opener.

#24 That if someone has red eyes in a photograph, that means there is a demon living inside them.

Image source: AlbionRemainsXIV, User:PeterPan23 / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)

#25 That if you swallowed a watermelon seed a watermelon would grow inside your stomach.

Image source: 123fofisix, Floh Keitgen / unsplash (not the actual photo)

Also, we had a lot of those big black and yellow garden spiders around. They would have these big zig zags of silk down the middle of their web and I was told they were writing spiders, and if you bothered them they would write your name and you would die. The zig zag was them practicing their penmanship.