They heard about it in Leesburg. They heard about it in Ohio. Now they're talking about it in Switzerland and England.

The tale is shocking: A child visiting Walt Disney World was snatched and dragged into a restroom, where his head was shaved. The youngster was drugged and carried out of the park. The kidnapping was foiled when his parents spotted him on a sophisticated camera system that monitors the whole park. Disney is covering it up.

Prominent people in Orlando swear the story, which sometimes varies, is true. An official in the Orange County comptroller's office and a partner in one of the city's most influential law firms leaked it to the press.

Reports and inquiries drove the Orange County Sheriff's Office to distraction. A detective was assigned to check it out.

His verdict: "Fantasyland."

But that hasn't stopped the rumor. If anything, it's gone global.

On Thursday, a reporter from the Swiss daily newspaper Blick called The Orlando Sentinel seeking information about the children of a Swiss banker from Basel who supposedly were kidnapped from Disney World a few weeks ago.

Reporter Andrea Heeb said the bank executive's daughter vanished into the crowds, and then two men who offered to help look for her made off with the couple's 10-year-old son. The executive and his wife are in a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland, trying to rebuild their lives.

Heeb said a bulletin from Interpol, an international police organization, confirmed the disappearance. But the investigator who told her he saw the bulletin has misplaced it. He can't remember any names.

"That would indicate how full of baloney this is," said Orange Detective Bill Blackton.

Sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said the story always is the same with just a few variations - sometimes the child's hair is dyed or he is wearing a wig. In some versions, kidnapped children are sold to South Americans. Nobody knows exactly what for.

About a week ago, a British newspaper called Solomons.

"You know, they have tabloids over there. They love this sort of thing. Very weird," he said.

Calls come from Ohio, from North Florida and South Florida and from Canada.

But some of the juiciest details have originated right here in Orlando. There are tales of shutting down the Magic Kingdom, of posting the entire Disney security force at the gates to search visitors.

"I think the story is true," said Tom Wilkes, a partner in the law firm of Gray Harris & Robinson. "My sister told me, and my family are not weirdos.

"If this is an urban myth, I'm going to be real embarrassed. In a way, I hope it never occurred, and in another way . . . well, never mind."

Wilkes said his sister, Cathy, knew the mother whose kids were taken. Cathy couldn't be reached Thursday, but she left a message with the name of the Windermere woman who told her the story.

"It didn't happen to me," said the woman, who begged that her name not be used to avoid embarrassing her husband.

"There is a girl that I knew who went to this church, see? And it happened to a friend of hers or whatever. See, I don't even know the person who told me. My mom lives in Winter Park, and she heard the same story in her exercise class."

Sometimes, the rumor is easier to track. In Leesburg earlier this year, the story went around that Dr. Michel Snyder's children were the victims.

People stopped him at the hospital and the grocery store. They called the dermatologist's office to inquire whether his children, 1 and 2 years old, had gotten over the horrible experience.

"It was particularly strange because the rumors began before we'd ever been to Disney with our kids," Snyder said. "I haven't the foggiest notion how this got started."

Neither does Orange's deputy comptroller Jim Moye, who heard a version of the story. But Moye and others think they know what keeps it going.

"Disney does not like incidents at the park to go public. With the amount of control and privacy that Disney has, and the potential damage to the park, it would seem that they would want to keep something like that quiet," he said.

Disney's response: "Come off it," said spokesman Charlie Ridgway. "You're telling me Disney is going to cover up a kidnapping?

"The rumor is so groundless it's ridiculous."

Disney doesn't have a monitoring system, he said. Disney officials never had to send employees to look for a lost child. They report all crimes that happen on their property to the sheriff's office. They're very, very concerned about their guests. The rumors obviously were generated by one person running around town telling everybody.

Has the entertainment giant lost its sense of humor on this issue?

"No comment," Ridgway said.