Urban Myth of telegraph

In the sixteenth century, an urban myth of a device that can send messages letter by letter over magical needles came to be. I think this was people trying to get their hopes up about a new, exciting way to communicate to people. There was a French minister Cardinal Richelieu who people thought had one because of how informed he was. I think this could be because people are scared of the unknown, so they make up stories that are plausible to make it less scary.