The word "gullible" literally means to be like a seagull, following whatever is put in front of you without giving a second thought. Actually, that's a lie, but if you believed it, you might find yourself falling for some of these real life stories of people who were just a little too trusting for their own good.

Finnishing Late

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When I was in college I was an orientation leader for new international students (I was the only American in the group). At some event everyone was introducing themselves and where they were from. I picked a country at random and jokingly announced that I was from Finland.

I didn't realize that this girl took me seriously until months later when she introduced me to someone else as an international student from Finland. Story credit: Reddit / quesrah

The Hazard Bird

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My dad drove me and my little brother to the store and left us there while he went to get groceries. I was about twelve at the time, and my brother was about seven. We were both bored, playing I Spy in the parking lot and all, and my brother wanted to know what the hazard light on the car dashboard meant.

I told him that if he hit the hazard button, the Hazard Bird would come down from its roost and snatch him up and carry him away. I also told him that he could never bring this up to our father, because he'd lost a grandfather to the Hazard Bird, and was very sensitive to mentions of the Hazard Bird.

My brother acted very careful to never mention the Hazard Bird when our dad got back in the car. He even looked kind of haunted. My brother came to me last year and told me he'd figured out the whole Hazard Bird thing was a lie. He was sixteen. Story credit: Reddit / daisy_chain

Made in Canada

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For about 10 glorious seconds, I made my girlfriend believe that Canada was named after the Geese. You see, there are Canada geese in Europe, so I told that they'd always been called that, and they'd always been around.

Once explorers found Canada, the only thing they saw that looked familiar, were the geese, so of course they would name the new land after these geese, that were so like the ones found at home. Story credit: Reddit / Skulder

The Deadliest Harvest

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I convinced my younger brother that the Discovery Channel was putting out a new reality show that was to be a companion to "Deadliest Catch" called "The Deadliest Harvest," where they chronicled the dangers and horrors of harvesting iceberg lettuce…from the icebergs they grow on. Story credit: Reddit / sleepybrooke

Vegetarian's Disease

Pexels

In school I used to really like spreading Elmer's glue on my hand, letting it dry, and then peeling it off. (Who am I kidding…I still like doing this.) Anyway, one time a friend saw me peeling off the dried glue and asked me why my skin was peeling off.

I told him it was a side-effect of being vegetarian. He believed me…we were in high school… Story credit: Reddit / adjblair

Mexican Specialty

Pexels

So one summer day, I go visit my Mexican aunt (my dad is Mexican, mom is white) who always gives me food to bring home to my family whenever I stop by. On this particular day, she gave me some home made salsa along with some sugar cookies.

So I bring said salsa and cookies home and as I walk in the door my mom sees and asks, "watcha got there?" I tell her for no reason at all, "these Mexican sugar cookies that you're supposed to eat with this salsa... weird right? It's some Mexican specialty."

"Oh goodie! Sounds exciting." She proceeds to grab a spoon, cookie and the salsa, pours a dab onto the cookie and is about to eat it. At this point I make the swift and decisive decision not to tell her I was kidding. She chewed and swallowed the whole thing, bless her soul.

Needless to say, it did not taste good but she chalked it up as an acquired taste and to this day she doesn't know that the cookies and salsa were meant to be deliciously enjoyed apart from one another. Story credit: Reddit / hernan17

Ice To Meet You

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I had moved, as a 16-year-old Junior, from Alaska to California at the end of my Junior year. My new teachers, of course, decided to introduce me as "MizRenee from Alaska," and encouraged questions from my new classmates.

To my abject horror, most of them were from purportedly intelligent students asking things like "did you have blow-dryers, curling irons, electricity, etc.," and the ever-popular "did you live in an igloo." I finally couldn't take it anymore, so when the igloo question popped up?

I quite seriously looked at the class and said, "of course we lived in an igloo - a two-story one in fact, and the dog-sled igloo was attached too. Unfortunately, we turned the whale-oil heater up too high, and it melted both igloos, and, because it's April, the snow's no good this time of year for building another one, which is why I've moved down here."

I was appalled when Every. Single. Person. - including the teacher - believed me. No questions asked. Story credit: Reddit / MizRenee

Blue Rasperry Love

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Second or third time I met her, I convinced the lady I am now dating that there really are blue raspberries. They grow in Cambodia, but you don't see them ever, because they spoil so fast that they have to be juiced right away, similar to guavas.

I came up with this on the spot when she asked if I "knew any interesting facts". After a little bit, I confessed there are no real blue raspberries and she punched me in the stomach. We'll have been dating for three years at the end of this month. Story credit: Reddit / GrandTyromancer

Toothpaste Bath

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In high school, a group of friends and I were smoking weed and it was my friend Steve's first or second time smoking. We were at my house (parents were out of town) but my friend Steve had to go back to his house and he was worried that he would smell like weed when he got home.

I told him to wash his hands with toothpaste and it would make the smell go away. Steve was upstairs for like 20 minutes so a few of us decided to send a search a rescue mission for him.

We walked into the bathroom and there was Steve, stripped down to his boxers scrubbing his entire body and face with Colgate +Whitening… This was probably 10 years ago and we still laugh about it to this day. Story credit: Reddit / A1MurderSauce

Beautiful Japxica

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There was this girl on my volleyball team who was a little more gullible than your average high school freshmen. There were quite a few tricks we pulled on her but my personal favorite was when we convinced her of the existence of a country called Japxica.

We described it as an island between Mexico and Japan. However what makes Japxica truly unique is that fact that half of the island nation is located on one side of the map (near Mexico) and other half on the other side (near Japan).

The best part was when she tried to act like she already knew the country saying "oh yes, I've heard of Japxica before. It's supposed to be beautiful." Story credit: Reddit / itztitz

Salut Salute

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My dad was retired from the army, a SFC. (Sgt 1st class). So my cousins from France visited us, and since my dad didn't speak french, they asked me about all his military citations, hanging on the wall in his den.

I told them that he was a very famous general and every time they came within eyesight of him, they needed to salute him. They were like seven or eight years old.

For the whole week they were here, they stood at attention every time they saw my dad and saluted him. My dad is like WTF the whole time! It was hilarious! Story credit: Reddit / boxingdude

Hidden Accent

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I convinced all my friends my freshman year of college that I secretly had a very strong southern Indiana accent that I was covering up (that's where I grew up, but was going to school in Seattle). I would use my (very fake) accent only when I was drunk, and they all believed me until I admitted my lie 6 months later. Story credit: Reddit / iamnotnaked

Brotherly Love

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My brother and I are a year apart but we were always in the same school year. This confused people because they assumed we were twins and after a while were tired of correcting them. We look nothing alike. Out of boredom we devised an elaborating story that we rehearsed perfectly.

We were able to convince a handful of girls that we were identical twins. We said that the reason my brother was shorter and looked nothing like me now was because he was in a car accident when he was young.

Due to the car accident his growth was stunted and needed plastic surgery which made his face thinner and ugly. We had one girl convinced for three years. She brought it up one day and every one of our friends looked at her like she was stupid. Story credit: Reddit / Yes_it_is_that_big

A Little Bird Told Me

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My ex believed that Conchords were birds with metal wings. We were watching Flight of the Conchords one day, and she asked what a Conchord was. I replied that it was a bird with metal wings, and she took it at face value and left it at that.

I was googling something on her laptop around two weeks later and her search history was full of "conchord" "metal bird with wings" etc. I asked her what the deal was. "Oh, I was trying to find a picture of a conchord."

It took me a second and then I laughed so hard I cried. Story credit: Reddit / Xeno505

Up Periscope

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I once convinced a friend's particularly gullible ex that a periscope is "that little red button that nobody's supposed to push, ever." My reasoning? Peri was a prefix meaning around, and scope means "to kill," which is why the mouthwash has that name - scope kills germs.

The logical conclusion was that if you push that button, everybody around you dies. Story credit: Reddit / TreeStumpin

Bad Teacher

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There was one kid in our class who was… not all there, most of the time. The professor managed to convince him that 1) the reason old movies are in black and white is because colors hadn't been invented yet, and they were invented by a man named Roy G. Biv.

And 2) the Earth is flat, because if you stand on one side of a room and point downward, and someone else stands on the other side of the room and points downward, you're not pointing at the same place. Story credit: Reddit / Twyll

Delusions of Grandeur

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My great-aunt did this to me. I was about 5 or 6 years old, I was riding my bike in circles outside the house and being really noisy; she told me to stop as I was annoying. A few moments after I ran inside the house and kept running around and screaming. All the while she kept scolding me.

Then a huge earthquake happened that felled bookshelves and stuff. It created a crack on our wall. I was totally freaked. After a few moments right after the earthquake she looked at me sternly and scolded, "SEE WHAT YOU DID?!?! SEE?! SEE!??"

So for ten years I had totally thought the earthquake (which was of magnitude around 6.7 to 7.0) was my fault, including the destruction of the houses and such. Story credit: Reddit / sanipriya

Nature's Camo Gear

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My brother used to work as a kayak instructor in France, usually coaching British city kids. One of the things he used to tell the kids was that in ww2 the French used to paint sycamore trees in military-style camouflage so the German bombers wouldn't see them.

And after the war the French decided to carry on painting the trees as a tradition, hence why they look the way they do. Apparently a lot of them believed it. Story credit: Reddit / WibblyWib

Psych!

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I was working retail at the mall and this girl came in to look at some of our wares. While trying to sell her some stuff I noticed she had a bracelet or necklace or something (can't remember) with the zodiac sign for Scorpio on it.

I happened to know we were under Scorpio at the time (I don't buy into that stuff, I just happened to know this). So, I stopped talking suddenly and said, "I'm sorry….but…you had a birthday recently or are having one soon, right?" She looked surprised and said, "Yeah. How'd you know?"

I hadn't planned this out but I immediately said, in a tone that suggested pride mixed with modesty, "I'm psychic." The girl got wide-eyed real quick and started backing away. It was priceless.

If I had wanted to lose the sale I would have left it at that, but I quickly told her I was kidding and how I really knew. Still, that look of shock never fully left her face. For all I know she still tells the story of the psychic salesman. Story credit: Reddit / NikkoE82

The Plains of Maine

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I'm from Maine, but I go to college in Worcester, Mass. I don't live in the middle of nowhere, my hometown is actually a reasonable sized city (yes it's tiny compared to Boston or New York City, but it's a city nonetheless).

One day when I was having lunch with a couple of my friends, someone asked what everyone would do if they were stuck on an island in the middle of a frozen lake. I sarcastically replied that I knew how to make ice skates, so I would just skate to shore.

However, my friends mostly believed that and asked how I knew how to make ice skates. Without missing a beat I responded that to graduate high school in Maine, you have to pass a wilderness survival class.

And for the better part of an hour my friends all believed that I knew how to craft a bow and arrow, ice skates, usable shelters and various other things, simply because I was from Maine and those are the things you have to know when you live in Maine. Story credit: Reddit / frodofro13

I Think I'm a Clone Now

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For my tenth birthday my dad took me on a 3 day trip to Vancouver, leaving my mom and my 7 year old sister at home.

When we got back my sister asked where we had gone, and I convinced her that at birth everyone had a clone made so that if they ever got sick they could get new organs and limbs donated from their clones.

I told her I wasn't supposed to let her know because she was too young, and she was convinced for days until she let slip to my dad that she wanted to see her clone too. My parents weren't very impressed but I've never let her forget it! Story credit: Reddit / paigecew

Highland Haggis

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I'm Scottish, and I have a number of overseas friends thanks to spending far too much time on the Internet. Back in 2010, I met an American girl and of course she had all sorts of questions ranging from "do you wear a kilt?" to "do you have windows?"

Jokingly, I told her haggis was an animal. She believed it, which is kind of understandable, but I decided to take it further. I told her they had left legs shorter than their right so they can stand up on the hills where they eat heather. She still believed it.

I told her there was another variety with shorter right legs that went around hills the other way. She still believed it.

I told her there had been attempts to breed the two to make a haggis that had legs of equal length, but they were unsuccessful as in order to mate with the female, the male had to turn around, causing it to fall over. She still believed it. Story credit: Reddit / ChefExcellence

Jashington

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I once convinced a girl that there was no W before 1950, I used various statements, like "well think about it, there is no W in the united states of America, and it hardly shows up anywhere in history" she replied "what about George Washington?"

My reply was, they used a J before 1950, as in George Jashington, like a y. and she went on believing this for months. Story credit: Reddit / mutebychoice

Red Expert

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My mom is an art graduate.. A couple of years ago she decided to do her masters in education. So i convinced my friend that she was mastering in the color red, because that's what artists do, they pick a color and major in it.

He believed that until a couple of month ago when he was bragging to his gf about my moms masters! Story credit: Reddit / newhereandeverywhere

By the Book

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For a solid 8 months I had my younger sister convinced that there was such a thing as a "big sister handbook" that laid out all of the ridiculous rules that I made up for her to follow. This handbook was an empty journal.

Well, it looked empty to her, because obviously she wasn't an older sister. She figured it out when she finally realized that she was actually an older sister. Story credit: Reddit / capite_censi

How to Eat a Hotdog

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Convinced my girlfriend for two years I didn't eat hotdogs the regular way because they were too phallic. I had told her I ate them from the top down.

I had forgotten about it, but after 2 years of dating I was eating a hotdog and she yelled "Aha!" She had to remind me that I had told her that. Story credit: Reddit / Allstresdout

Fruit Head

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I believed that eating Fruit Gushers would actually turn your head into a fruit when I was younger. I ate a bag once and my sister and her friend told me my head was about to turn into a strawberry. Scariest, most nerve-wracking time in my life. Story credit: Reddit / oscartuna

Dad in Sixty Seconds

Reddit / shadyperson

My ex-girlfriend thought I was the son Of Nicolas Cage for 2 years. My Dad is a truck driver so we barely ever see each other, I told my girlfriend that my father was never there cause he was Nicolas Cage and was doing movies in California and other countries.

I even made a cool photoshop of him holding me as a child. Story credit: Reddit / shadyperson

Hook, Line and Sinker

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When I was kid, shortly after the movie "Hook" came out, I convinced my sisters that I was Peter Pan. I concocted this elaborate story about how I head out to Never-never-land every night after they went to bed. They begged me to go along with me.

I told them that took a lot of training, so they spent several days practicing their sword fighting skills, with toy swords. Finally, the night came.

They stayed up all night waiting for me to come in to take them to never-never-land. The next morning, I told them Tinkerbell never showed up to supply the magic fairy dust. Story credit: Reddit / jazzcatdrp

Life on Mars

Wikipedia / NASA / CC0

At party with (now ex) girlfriend of two years. She's a little drunker than me, and too gullible.

I take her outside and very seriously explain to her that I'm from a future colony on Mars, and I've been sent back in time and to Earth to research humanity. I tell her I already have a wife and children in the future, on Mars, and someday soon I'll have to go back to my home.

She had tears in her eyes, and smiled a bit in skepticism (such a hard sell, she is), but was genuinely sad for a bit. Story credit: Reddit / WoofWoofington

South of the Border

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I had heart surgery as a baby, so scar going down my chest, I also lived in Mexico eight years ago, 7th grade. When I was in high school and someone saw my scar and asked if I had heart surgery I would always respond with I got stabbed in Mexico.

Eventually I formed a whole back story to go with it, evolving location, time, what I was doing, my hospital visit, etc. Other classmates of mine would back me up at times, 1 out of 3 underclass men would believe this on average. Story credit: Reddit / callmederp

Hula Disaster

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I threw a party while my mom was out one weekend and some guys broke a door.

When she discovered the door, I told her I was hula dancing with my backpack on while wearing a grass skirt I borrowed from a friend and that the skirt got caught on a nearby table and caused me to trip, fall, and break the door. Upon my explanation she replied "Yeah that sounds just like you." Story credit: Reddit / iamanamoeba

Whale of a Sperm

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One day in 10th grade I was at my girlfriend's house, I got bored and said "Did you know that a sperm-whale sperm is the size of an eggplant? I don't know why I said it, but since there was no reason I would lie about that she believed me.

We've been together for 10 years now and I'll bring it up occasionally, she still doesn't think it's funny. Story credit: Reddit / lol6000YearsMyAss

This One is Mean

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My friend and I composed a letter to her 12 year old brother saying he had been accepted to Hogwarts and would be expected there that fall. We wrote the letter in green ink and even made a seal on the envelope.

We explained to him that he was being accepted a year late because the owls had a case of west nile and were temporarily out of service. He was so excited… Story credit: Reddit / beautybeatz

Wet Revenge

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When I was in grade 2 there was a vicious bully in grade 5 who picked on me for no good reason. I came up with a plan to deal with him that sounds really ridiculous but it was pretty ingenius for a 7 year old kid.

I intentionally peed my pants during recess and then told a teacher that this kid had urinated on me. Needless to say this got way out of hand and the principal expelled the kid. I didn't speak up because I didn't want to get in trouble so I went through with my lie.

Plus I was secretly pleased that he got kicked out of school. It sounds pretty horrible but this kid was probably the most vicious adversary I've ever had. Story credit: Reddit / drmonkeyfish

French Lesson

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I managed a steamship office and we opened up a trucking division in my city. The headquarters for the trucking division was in Montreal, and the boss up there spoke french. So I hire a transport manager locally to start the operation, she trains with me for a couple of weeks, and then we sent her to Montreal to train in HQ.

So this grandmotherly transport manager wanted to impress the boss in Montreal with a little bit of french, (by the way I speak french) so she asks me to tell her how to say "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance" in french.

So I tell her how, she actually recorded me saying it so she could practice it for a week. So the big day comes and she heads off to Montreal (from charleston, SC) and the boss is going to pick her up at the airport.

So they meet each other in baggage claim, she walks up to the VP of operations for this huge steamship line (admittadly I AM pretty good friends with him) and she tells him that she wants to play with his ding dong. He responds "thank you very much" and - as expected- never let on that I punked her.

But when he got a chance away from her, he calls me in his VERY heavy accent….Joooo are a funny son-of-a-beeeeech!! Story credit: Reddit / boxingdude

Third Time's The Charm

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Haha, I once convinced a guy that shortly after puberty you get a third testicle which makes the sperm able to create a baby. The guy believe this for a little over a week, each time he asked someone about this I had already gotten to them first and asked them to go along with it.

I felt bad after a bit, as he was getting really worried as he had recently gone through puberty and hadn't gotten his third testicle yet. So I told him the truth. Story credit: Reddit / scealfada

Blanket Baby

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When my parents were having trouble getting my brother to give up his blankie... I told, in secret, that the reason he loved the blanket so much was that it was the blanket we found him wrapped in... in a dumpster behind K-Mart (a big box grocer/good store for those unfamiliar).

I thought it was hilarious (I believe I was around 9 at the time) but it turns out that the little guy believed me. Years later he blurts out at the dinner table "WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME YOU FOUND ME IN A DUMPSTER?!?"

As you can imagine my parents were as "What the eff?" as can be. Story credit: Reddit / MyWifesBusty

The Gravity of the Situation

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Myself and others convinced a girl that the CIA control gravity and that they have a button they can press to de-gravitify people thus they would float away and get caught by the Grav-copters. Story credit: Reddit / Urbanjamjar

Antarctic Explorer

Pixabay

There was the time I convinced a significant number of classmates that I had won a "Young Oceanographers" tournament some year prior and had subsequently embarked on a summer-long study of Antarctica.

The amusing thing is that they were aware enough to ask me how the boat got around in such cold conditions, since summer in the Northern Hemisphere (where I live) would be winter in Antarctica.

I told them I did it in place of a semester of school, which was why I'd had such weird social skills early on in high school. Story credit: Reddit / Pileus

Let's Go Fly a Kite

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I have a friend that is obsessed over asserting that her home state is superior to the state in which we live. I convinced her it was illegal to fly kites in our state. She went around for months telling people how back we she's from, people are allowed to fly kites wherever they want. Story credit: Reddit / pslav

Auto Mobile

Pixabay

I brought a friend out to California, and she noticed that the freeways here had reflectors instead of painted lane markers. I told her that the reflectors were part of a sophisticated electronic system installed in some cars that allowed blind people to drive without causing accidents.

The reflectors told the car where the lanes were so that they wouldn't swerve. A couple days later, she had a "Hey, wait a minute!" moment. Story credit: Reddit / archpope

That's a Paddling

Pixabay

We're from Washington State, and a few years back went on a trip with the scouts to go canoeing in Montana. A couple days into the trip, on tuesday, our scoutmaster tells us if we're off the river by 11am Friday he will buy us lunch.

This one kid starts talking about how easy that will be, until my dad informs him that it is actually wednesday, because we crossed the international date line on the way to the river.

This kid was like 15 and pretty intelligent, but he completely believed my dad and then started freaking out about the fact that we had like sixty miles to canoe in two days. I was almost in tears trying to hold in laughter, and the look on this kid's face when my dad told him the truth was priceless. Story credit: Reddit / heretohelp13

Inventing a Sport

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The extreme sport of Hydro-Bungee-Zorbing. This is a sport where you a perform a bungee jump inside a zorb, after you stop bouncing the zorb is released and you fall into a river, you'll then float down the river for a mile or so before being caught in a net and then rolled down a hill.

Me and some friends were living in hostels for a time in New Zealand, we were short on cash and looking for a house to rent so we didn't have any money for the kind of extreme sports that New Zealand is famous for.

Every single day our new roommates would come back from their bus trip tours and tell us about all the awesome stuff they'd done. This wasn't much fun when you've spent your day looking for a job, so we decided to make up sports and pretend we'd done them.

People must have liked the idea because a tour operator we met a couple of months later was still being asked if they did it. Story credit: Reddit / TeleSavalas

Sharkbait

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I convinced some drunk fellow at a party in Ocean City that a scratch on my knee (in his defense it was a very big very fresh scratch and left a scar that has convinced doctors that I've had knee surgery) was a shark bite.

He was goggle-eyed and blearily warned everyone around him about sharks for most of the rest of the night. Story credit: Reddit / graogrim

Close Call

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Freshman year of college I convinced a girl the shooting star she was bragging about seeing was actually a French research satellite that fell out of orbit. "I saw it on CNN, they were worried it might not splashdown in the ocean. Very serious stuff."

It took a few minutes of her grilling me for details but I managed to convince her. No sooner did she concede it wasn't a shooting star than a guy who had overheard my lengthy and skillful lie chimed in with 'Wait I didn't think the French even HAD a space program' and it immediately resurrected her disbelief and killed the whole thing. Story credit: Reddit / epsilonbob

Well Hung

Pixabay

I was in a grocery store in China with a friend who was trying to find clothes-hangers. He didn't know the word for it in Chinese, so I told him the word for "condom". He walked around the store, asking every salesperson where the condoms were.

Finally one of them took him to the aisle -- by this point he's been running around the store shouting "condoms!" for ten minutes because no one will take him seriously and help him -- full of condoms. His reaction, combined with the collective reactions of the ~20 Chinese people watching made me almost pee my pants. Story credit: Reddit / savetheancients

Flat Earth Society

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My whole high school class convinced this girl that the earth was flat. Watching her shocked reaction as she realized that the earth was nothing but a oval-shaped disk floating though space (one of the "smart kids" pointed out the map of the world to illustrate the point) was a both exhilarating and frightening experience. Story credit: Reddit / RDJesse

Freezer Fool

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At my first job (a pizza chain) my boss instructed me to remind him to have me mop the walk in freezer. Being the 16 year old that had never had a job before I did just that. Then I attempted to mop the frozen floor of the freezer. Story credit: Reddit / thetofudabeast

Pink Tacos

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I convinced two colleagues that in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Taco Bell was selling tacos with pink taco shells, but in order to get them, you had to specifically ask for pink tacos.

Both of them went to Taco Bell, separately, and both of them returned to work screaming at me for making fools of them. Story credit: Reddit / Monstrous_Reprobate

Banana High

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During a high school auditorium lecture on drugs, the lecturers on stage asked for questions. I raised my hand, and when called upon I asked, with my best pokerface, 'why do you get high when you eat three bananas and then drink a can of sprite really fast?'

The lecturer had obviously never heard of that before, and i started hearing all around me 'does that work?' The answer to that is, you won't get high, but you will vomit. Needless to say, I had people coming up to me all day telling me that people have been throwing up all over the place. Story credit: Reddit / 19southmainco