People will believe anything... Yes, that includes you!
When one of my first pets, a small dog, died, my parents immediately replaced him with a hamster. Trying to protect their young child from heartbreak, they claimed that the dog had turned into the hamster.
It took longer than I'd like to admit to realize that that was impossible.
Redditor u/Marbz123 wanted to know silly things people fell for, and got some funny answers when they asked, What's the dumbest thing you have ever believed?
10. Gas leaks do cause explosions, just not that kind of gas
"When I was small I lived in a small town by an oil refinery. My parents convinced me that if you fart on site, it would explode. I was in kindergarten.
We went on a class field trip there once (not much else to do in the middle of nowhere), and I felt the gas building in my gut. I didn't want to kill everyone, so I grew quite stressed. I realized that I would need to take extraordinary measures to prevent catastrophe. So I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time with my hand down my pants, blocking my fart."
9. The power of new sneakers
Giphy"For the longest time when I was young I believed getting new training shoes made you run faster. As soon as I got a new pair I'd go outside and have my distance set between 2 lamp posts, I'd swear it felt like I was quicker with every new pair."
8. Car technology will probably be capable of this soon
"When I was young I didn't realise that the car indicator was manually controlled by the driver. I thought the car just knew where you wanted to go."
7. This is definitely why my jeans don't fit anymore
"When I was like 4 or 5, I strongly believed that it wasn't people growing up that caused their clothes not to fit in anymore but it' was clothes becoming smaller and tighter by themselves. I planned to keep a piece of my clothing and see how small it could get and wether or not it would vanish at the end."
6. The movie "Pleasantville" is the true story of when the world turned colorful
"When I was really little, I really thought the world was in black and white and suddenly became color at some point. I knew that the actors on TV were real people so they must have lived back when the world was grey. This was backed-up by evidence of black and white photos in the family album that also then turned to color photos as people got older."
5. How else would it work?
"There was a lighty-uppy fountain near where I lived when I was a kid. The lights changed colour and everything, it was pretty awesome for a kid.
My dad told me that a tiny little man was sitting in a tiny little room under the fountain, and he just sat there switching lights on and off.
I believed him for years"
4. Street braille
"My dad drove over Rumble strip when I was young and I asked what they were for and he said 'so blind drivers know that a stop sign is coming up' and I believed that for like four straight years until it finally clicked."
3. Actors are so brave
"That in the old movies when someone was killed, they actually died.
My sister explained to me that people used to volunteer to die so the film could be made..."
"Same here, I thought that the actors were so brave for volunteering to die."
2. We've all been fooled by a gag headline
"Back in college, I read this article about a South American tribe that had made complex computers using a rope/pulley system. I excitedly told some people about it, thinking it was really cool. Only later did I realize that the tribe's name was a pun on 'April Fool's'. I felt like the biggest idiot around for believing it."
1. If Santa and his elves don't exist...
Giphy"I recently found out reindeer actually exist. I am 26."
"My wife is nearly 40 and didn't know that until a few months ago. It's understandable. The first way most of us hear about them is that they can fly and they pull Santa's sleigh.
Santa doesn't exist. Elves don't exist. Why would a flying deer thing exist?"
