"OH my god, what a story! You'll never guess what I've heard over the weekend, yeah?"

It isn't often you hear the above sentence reverberating around the hallowed walls of theET newsroom, but sometimes, just sometimes the god of current events can unleash a golden newsy thunderbolt on Priestgate.

Take the other week, for example. A senior member of staff rushed into work on a Monday morning – his tie was askew, his eyes bulging, his temple sweaty.

(And this member of staff isn't normally the kind of bloke to sport a sweaty temple.)

"I've heard the strangest thing over the weekend," he said. "Apparently, a woman went to the Esso garage in Whittlesey late at night, you know, when the shop is all shut up and you have to pay through that little plastic window?"

Yes...

"Well, this woman pulled up, pumped her petrol and went to pay at this window. But the garage attendant said to her 'Don't panic, but I'm going to open the door and I want you to come in here.'

"The girl did as she was told. And as soon as she was inside the garage, the attendant explained that as she had turned her back to pay for her petrol he had seen a man tuck himself into the back of her car and crouch in the back seat.

"They called the police and waited, and when the police came, sure enough they found a man with a knife in the back of the car."

The ET staffer was right – it was a hell of a story. Only trouble was, when our reporters phoned the garage and the police to check it out, they didn't know what we were talking about.

wWat's your favourite urban myth?
Comment below, email us: features@peterboroughtoday.co.uk or telephone the newsdesk 01733 555111.

Sadly for the senior ET newshound, and the rest of us, all too often that golden newsy thunderbolt isn't actually a golden newsy thunderbolt: it's what Sir Alan Sugar would refer to as "a load of old tut." However, that hasn't stopped the story from spreading around Peterborough, and we have had dozens of phonecalls asking us why we are ignoring the most sinister, spookiest bit of news to hit the city in a long time.

The truth is, we not. We – and many of you – had just fallen prey to that most seductive and scary of things, the good old urban myth.

You've probably heard a fair few in your time: usually they involve a man preying on a young woman, the friend of a friend of the friend who is telling you.