Cryptids of North America Pt. 5: Massachusetts

Artwork by Monica Gallagher of Lipstick Kiss Press on Etsy

Now that our tour of northern New England is complete, let us turn our attention to southern New England, starting with the state that, in many ways, started it all for the United States (for better or for worse). Given its association with the superstitious and fearful Puritans that colonized the future Bay State in the 17th century, it’s probably no surprise that tales of monstrous critters roaming the wildlands would spring up sooner or later. Indeed, I already covered some of them in my first paranormal triangles article, where I covered the so-called “Bridgewater Triangle” as the very first entry. But Hockomock Swamp isn’t the only place in this state where creepy creatures lurk…

Once again, though, before we start, I should shout out Lipstick Kiss Press for the graphic that inspired this article, with additional inspiration coming from this graphic by Hunter Whitman.

Bigfoot

While certainly not as widespread as in other states we’ve covered so far, Massachusetts still has its fair share of Bigfoot encounters. These are mainly concentrated in the state’s more sparsely settled western half, especially around the Berkshire Mountains. The earliest sighting in the state dates back to 1765 when a group of explorers allegedly found one asleep outside Great Barrington. The creature would go on to break into settlers’ cabins and steal food and shiny objects until it was captured and caged, although it later escaped. Other reported encounters include:

-1895: The town selectman of North Adams reports seeing a humanoid creature leaping fences and crossing roads. Blaming it for livestock deaths, a posse hunted the beast down and reported it as a gorilla escaped from a circus menagerie.

-October 18, 1879: Two hunters encounter a five-foot-tall wild man covered in bright red fur outside Williamstown. One of the hunters, mistaking it for a bear, shot it. The wild man then turned toward the men and uttered such fierce cries of pain and rage that they fled the woods.

-1950s-present day: Leominster State Forest allegedly plays host to a region known as “Monsterland,” according to local author Ronny LeBlanc. It is a hotspot for Bigfoot encounters, UFO sightings, and strange glowing orbs. One of the most significant incidents from the area was in the 50s when a local man burst into a bar ranting and raving about a monster he claimed to have seen near Old Mill Road. He demanded that the bartender call the police and then set out to find the beast and kill it. His truck was found abandoned at the edge of the 4300-acre wood, but he was never seen again.

LeBlanc claims to have encountered a Bigfoot when he was eleven. He was biking down a trail behind Fall Brook Elementary School when he was spooked to notice that the forest was totally silent. Then, the shrubs exploded as an invisible monster walked across the trail.

LeBlanc has since come to believe that Bigfoot is some form of spirit, alien, or extradimensional entity rather than a flesh-and-blood animal. He bases this on the creature’s seemingly preternatural ability to disappear whenever it’s pursued by a posse and on reports he’s heard of the creature interacting with the orbs, even holding them in its hands. LeBlanc also claims to have seen an orb that split into two and formed itself into the eyes of a large humanoid creature that then moved off into the woods without making a sound.

Leominster was also at the center of a wave of UFO sightings in 1967, including the January 25 incident involving Betty Andreasson, who claims to have been abducted from her home in South Ashburnham.

-August 21, 1983: Four friends are camping on the shore of Felton Lake in October Mountain State Forest when they hear something large rustling in the underbrush. Eric Durant and Frederick Parody go out with a flashlight to see what’s making the commotion and are shocked to notice a creature standing on two legs silhouetted by the moonlight. The campers then spend the next hour packing their supplies to leave. As they pull out in their truck, they see the animal crouching in the bushes, its eyes glowing in the glare of the headlights. It stands 6-7 feet tall and is covered in dark brown hair.

-July 1989: An anonymous hiker claims to have been walking the trail along October Mountain when he saw a reddish-brown creature crouched in the bushes. He watched it through binoculars as it turned over rocks, searching for insects to eat, and ran as the creature vanished into the tree line. He would later describe it as having elongated arms and pointed facial features.

In addition to being a hub for Bigfoot sightings, October Mountain is also said to be a UFO hotspot and the site of a cemetery where a ghostly girl haunts her headstone.

The Black Flash

Artist credit: Jonathan Morrill on Fine Art America

Long before Provincetown became a popular tourist destination and LGBTQ+ hangout, the town was the home of an acrobatic anomaly known variously as the Black Flash, the Black Phantom, the Phantom Fiend, the Provincetown Phantom, or the Devil of the Dunes, who terrorized the city from 1938 to 1945.

He was first spotted in October of 1938 when a group of children reported seeing something black lurking amongst the seaside dunes. They added that the humanoid was extremely tall, with pointed ears and glowing eyes. Naturally, the adults dismissed it as a tall tale. Shortly afterward, a local woman named Mary Costa claimed to have seen the creature in front of the town hall. She described the eight-foot-tall Flash as having silver ears and glowing blue eyes and that it could jump impossibly high. She ducked into a nearby coffee shop and later reported the encounter to the police, who dismissed it as a hoax.

Soon enough, however, more reports kept coming in, including from the police themselves. New traits were described. It could breathe blue flames. It was fond of maniacal laughter. It could make sounds like a buzzing insect. It seemed to appear in multiple locations at the same time. And it loved to scare the living daylights out of the residents of Provincetown.

Mostly, the Black Flash preferred to jump out at victims and run away laughing. However, there were a few incidents that were a little more harrowing. For instance, Charles Farley claimed to have shot the Flash after seeing it in his backyard, only for the creature to laugh and jump over the fence. The Flash also demonstrated superhuman strength, like when a man tried to punch it only to have his hand crushed in its vicelike grip or when another man reported being thrown through the air from a single punch from the Flash. A group of police officers reportedly cornered the Flash in a school playground only to be disappointed when the creature simply did a backflip over a ten-foot fence.

But the Black Flash wouldn’t haunt Provincetown for much longer. In December 1945, a group of four children staying alone at the Janard household saw the Flash approaching from the hills. They rushed inside and locked the door, with the Flash rattling the doorknob trying to get in. Louis Janard grabbed a pot of boiling water and poured it over the creature’s head. For once, the Black Flash refrained from uttering its trademark evil laugh and simply ran away with a gasp of surprise. It was never seen again.

Theories as to who or what the Black Flash was continue to this day. Most police officers at the time believed it was nothing more than an extraordinarily tall and athletic prankster in a Halloween costume. Others have proposed that it was nothing more than a case of mass hysteria or collective delusion. Still others have suggested that it was a ghost or demon, possibly even the Devil himself.

Indeed, it’s hard not to notice the many similarities between the Black Flash and Spring-Heeled Jack, who was spotted all over Britain during a period lasting from 1837 to 1904. Maybe they’re part of the same family of supernatural entities? Or the same form of mass hysteria? You make the call!

The Cobble Mountain Critter

The only source I could find on this Bigfoot story comes from episode 148 of the paranormal podcast New England Legends, hosted by Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger, where it is framed as a sequel of sorts to the 1980s wave of sightings around October Mountain I mentioned above.

The legend appears to have been popularized by a report to the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization (BFRO) website in September 2000. An anonymous fisherman claims to have been fishing illegally in the Cobble Mountain Reservoir, which rests between Blandford and Granville in the Springfield metropolitan area. It was 1 AM, and the fisherman was reeling in a dace when he noticed something large approaching him from the brush. It sounded like a human walking, and he struck his dying flashlight to get it working. It illuminated a humanoid shape with broad shoulders and large shining eyes. The Critter then made a horrible noise that the fisherman described as “like a shrieking demon baby,” which, predictably, caused him to make a beeline for his truck.

From there, Belanger and Auger go on to further describe the Critter as resembling any stereotypical Bigfoot (hairy, walks upright, bigger than a human or bear) except for a pair of red glowing eyes that have earned the Critter the additional nickname of Red-Eye Dick. Sightings of the Critter have been reported around the reservoir for decades previously, and the Critter is even said to have an origin story involving a Civil War veteran who became fused to a bear that was attacking him by a lightning strike. Of course, others believe the Critter is merely a wildman similar to the Winstead Wildman of Connecticut.

In any case, Belanger and Auger also briefly mention a few other cases involving a motorist being flagged down by a terrified hiker with torn clothes on Cobble Mountain Road, hunters shooting at the Critter, and strange howls in the night. Basically, if anything unexplained happens around the Cobble Mountain Reservoir, old Red-Eye Dick is the usual scapegoat.

The Dover Demon

The Dover Demon is undoubtedly Massachusetts’s most famous cryptid story, rivaled only by the Gloucester Sea Serpent. The fact that it seems to have vanished just as quickly as it arrived in a sleepy small town just 15 miles outside of Boston only casts further mystery on this strange humanoid.

It all began at 10:32 on the evening of April 21, 1977, as a car carrying three seventeen-year-olds, Andy Brodie, Mike Mazzocca, and driver Bill Bartlett, drove down Farm Street. Bill saw something he would never forget as the car’s headlights illuminated the stone wall running along the street. What he saw creeping along the top of the wall for the next few seconds was like no animal he had ever witnessed. It was a hairless humanoid-type creature standing around four feet tall with peach-colored skin and glowing orange eyes suspended in a mouthless head shaped like a watermelon. The body and limbs were stick-thin, and the fingers were long and curled around the rocks. The sighting happened so fast that Bill was the only one to catch a glimpse of it. He immediately came forward to his parents and sketched the beast.

Just two hours later, fifteen-year-old John Baxter was walking home from his girlfriend’s house along Miller Hill Road when he noticed movement in the woods. Mistaking it for a friend of his, Baxter called out to the figure, who ran away down a nearby gully. He pursued it for a few minutes until he was startled to see, silhouetted against the moonlight, what he described as resembling a monkey with a “figure-eight” shaped head and glowing eyes. He was especially unnerved to see how the creature’s fingers and toes curled around the rock it was standing on and the tree it was leaning against. He fled the woods, got a ride home from a couple who happened to be passing through the intersection with Farm Street, and, like Bill, drew his own sketch of the beast.

The final canonical sighting of the Dover Demon came the following evening when Abby Brabham and Will Taintor (aged 15 and 18, respectively) saw the creature as they approached the bridge on Springdale Avenue. They described it as crouching on all fours and staring at them with glowing green eyes rather than orange.

There have been other possible sightings reported since then. Sherborn resident Mark Sennott claimed to have seen the Demon five years earlier while driving down Springdale Avenue near Channing Pond. Bill Bartlett may have had another encounter a year after the canonical sightings, as he claims to have heard a thump on the roof of his car while parked with his girlfriend on a lover’s lane and saw a small figure fleeing the scene.

In the years since, many theories have been proposed as to what the teenagers of Dover encountered that spring evening. The most common explanation given by skeptics is that the Dover Demon was nothing more than a misidentified moose or cow calf, or a foal, although believers object by pointing out that ungulates don’t have fingers. Joe Nickell has proposed that the Demon was a misidentified snowy owl, which could account for the eyeshine and the “fingers,” which Nickell theorizes were misidentified flight feathers. Other skeptical theories include escaped pet gibbons, a spring break hoax, or a dog.

More fantastical theories include the common argument that the Demon was an alien. Indeed, despite no UFO activity being associated with the creature, its unmistakable resemblance to the fabled gray aliens was strong enough to get the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) involved in subsequent investigations. Others have proposed that the Demon was some kind of mutant or one of the Memwegisi, a fair folk-type creature told of in indigenous Algonquin folklore. However, that seems unlikely, given that the Memwegishi were described as hairy, unlike the Demon.

Whatever one thinks of the Dover Demon, though, many residents of the community still testify that Bartlett and co. definitely believe that they saw something unusual that April. In an interview conducted 29 years after the incident, former police chief Carl Sheridan said of the witness: “That thing has haunted me for 29 years. I knew the kids involved. They were good kids… pretty reliable kids. God only knows (what they saw)… I still don’t know. Strange things have happened. The whole thing was unusual.”

The Gloucester Sea Serpent

This snake-like monstrosity has reportedly haunted the waters around Cape Ann since August of 1817, when the crew of a fishing vessel reported seeing a 60-foot creature they described as black and leathery with a serpent’s head containing eyes “as large as pewter plates.” This immediately made the serpent a media sensation, as these were fishermen operating out of the oldest fishing port in the United States who were familiar with every species that swam the Atlantic shores. Indeed, Ben Shattuck, writing for Salon, described it as “something equivalent to a Sasquatch walking across the parking lot of a hunting expo.”

Sightings of the serpent came from as far away as the Long Island Sound off the coast of Connecticut, and there was even an instance where the serpent was reported to have shown itself to a crowd of 200 off Wind Mill Point. A large cash reward was offered to anyone who could catch the serpent. The closest anyone came to claiming the reward was a pair of fishermen who fired muskets at the creature’s head, only to be disappointed when the animal slithered off, seemingly unaffected. The crew of the schooner Caravan reportedly fired a cannon at the serpent, only to have it swim away again.

The New England Linnaean Society in Boston quickly investigated the sightings. Their efforts were seemingly rewarded when a farmer brought them a four-foot snake he had killed with a pitchfork in the waters off Cape Ann. The Society immediately declared it to be one of the serpent’s hatchlings and declared it a new species: Scoliophis atlanticus, or the Atlantic humped snake. A more sober-minded French biologist declared it to be a deformed black snake, leaving the Society with egg on its face.

Even so, sightings of the serpent continued. In July 1818, William Sargeant claimed that the serpent had passed so close to his boat that he could have touched it with his oar. This sparked another hunt for the serpent, organized by Captain Richard Rich. Rich himself claimed to have harpooned the serpent at one point, only for the weapon to dislodge itself, allowing the creature to swim away yet again. Sightings of the serpent have continued sporadically up to the present day, including a sighting in 1980 in which the serpent allegedly stared at them with “eyes of pure evil.”

To this day, just what the Gloucester fishermen saw in those waters is hotly debated. Theories range from an unidentified species of giant eel to misidentified sea life to a hoax. Joe Nickell has seized upon several reports of a spear-like protrusion coming from the creature’s head to propose that the serpent was actually a narwhal that had wandered far from its normal range. Whatever the Gloucester sea serpent’s true identity, there is no doubt that it has become an icon of Massachusetts folklore.

The Hockomock Swamp Beasts

I already discussed these Bigfoot-type creatures in my first paranormal triangles article while discussing the supernatural occurrences surrounding the fabled Bridgewater Triangle. Allow me to share some more details on these strange swamp dwellers.

The swamp monster reportedly stands around seven feet tall. While it is usually bipedal like most other hairy hominids, it has sometimes been spotted running on all fours. I already discussed one incident from 1970 where a pair of police officers parked near the swamp were surprised by a bearlike creature that lifted the back of their patrol car off the ground, but there have been several others. But there have been several other sightings in and around the swamp, including but not limited to:

1978: Joseph DeAndrade was walking near Clay Banks when he heard a noise behind him and turned to see a brown and hairy “apish man-thing.” DeAndrade has since become a dogged paranormal investigator, having founded the Bridgewater Triangle Expedition Team (BTET) in 1985.

c. 1980: A West Bridgewater resident sees a hairy creature with reddish-orange eyes eating a pumpkin it had stolen from her garden. The startled creature runs off into the woods, taking the pumpkin with it.

1983: Fur trapper John Baker was canoeing in the swamp when a hairy beast splashed into the water and passed within a few yards of his boat.

August 5, 1985: A group of campers see a “tall, furry man-like creature with fangs and reddish-orange eyes standing upright. The beast growled and ran off into the night when the campfire suddenly flared up.

But that’s not the last Bigfoot story Massachusetts has to offer…

The Monster of Coca-Cola Ledge

Coca-Cola Ledge, which overlooks North Adams in Berkshire County, is known for two things: being used as a billboard for Coca-Cola, with the company’s logo painted on the side of the cliff, and for being the home of a monster that scared away anyone who got too close to the ledge.

There aren’t much in the way of actual accounts of encounters with the Monster. The closest that John Seven, writing for the blog North Adams Panopticon, could find was a so-called “monster safari” from August of 1965, in which a group of 10-20 teenagers camped out on the ledge with rifles in response to reports of a “shaggy beast” they claimed had been spotted there.

Seven claims to have also come across much weirder monster tales from around North Adams. For example, he came across a story involving a hunter who claimed to have seen a gaint mosquito on Pine Cobble Mountain in neighboring Williamstown in 1946. The hunter managed to trick the insect into getting its mouthparts lodged in a tree trunk, allowing him to blast it with his shotgun. By the time he managed to bring some friends over to see the carcass, however, it was gone, likely claimed by a foraging predator. Then again, this story was retold by local humorist Maynard Leahy, so maybe take it with a grain of salt.

Seven also begins the article by recounting an incident where the newsroom of the North Adams Transcript, where he was working at the time, recived a letter from a North Adams resident who claimed to have seen a winged humanoid swoop down from Coca-Cola Ledge over his house. Seven declined to pursue the story further in favor of pursuing a career in art journalism, a decision he now regrets.

Other anomalous phenomena recorded in the North Adams area include black panthers, misplaced alligators in the Hoosic River, and the ghost of an Indian chief that was allegedly spotted on Mount Greylock some time in the 1930s by a skier in the middle of a snowstorm. Then there’s the infamous Hoosac Tunnel, which really deserves its own article.

Pukwudgies

Artist credit: Scott Purdy on DeviantArt

Pukwudgies are another thing I covered in the first paranormal triangles list, but for those who haven’t read that one, here’s the gist of the legend.

Pukwudgies are the resident fairy folk of various Algonquin-speaking indigenous tribes, particularly the Ojibwe of Canada’s Great Lakes region and the Wampanoag of eastern Massachusetts, including where the Bridgewater Triangle is said to rest today. Their physical description is consistent across their range: they are about knee-high and resemble a half-troll, half-human creature with porcupine quills protruding from its back. Their relationship with humans varies from region to region, however. The Ojibwe describe the Pukwudgies as mischievous but ultimately harmless. The Wampanoag, on the other hand, described them as downright murderous with their pranks, often attacking their human neighbors with poison spears and arrows, kidnapping children, pushing people off cliffs, and luring them to their deaths with mesmerizing tei-pei-wankas (the Wampanoag equivalent of the will-o-the-wisp). Some stories even portray them as the arch enemies of the Wampanoag culture hero Maushop and even succeeded in killing him, which is scary when you consider that Maushop was a giant who regularly pulled whales out of the ocean with his bare hands and flung them against cliff faces to kill them.

But at least the Pukwudgie has been consigned to the mythic past, where it can’t hurt us, right? Unfortunately, some eyewitness accounts suggest they may still dwell among us. The most famous of such accounts is that of Raynham resident Bill Russo, who claims to have seen a four-foot-tall hairy humanoid while taking his dog out on a midnight walk in 1995. The creature spoke to him in a high-pitched voice, repeatedly saying, “Eee wah chu. Keahr.” Bill would later come to believe that the creature was saying, “We want you; come here,” in broken English.

Russo isn’t the only one to have seen the fair folk in the Bay State. Peter Muise, the writer of the blog New England Folklore, published this post on January 21, 2019, detailing a story told to him by a resident of Lawrence in Essex County he calls Miss S., which happened 30 years earlier. The woman said her brother, Bob, had been watching TV in his grandparents’ living room when he suddenly felt someone pulling his hair. Thinking it was one of his siblings, he turned around to yell at them, only to be surprised to see what looked like a 2-3 foot tall old lady with long white hair. The woman quickly made a beeline for the front door and vanished into thin air. When Bob told his grandmother (of Mi’kmaq heritage) what he saw, she told him not to worry because “They’re friendly.” Later, Bob’s mother took him and his cousins to catch a movie and, upon their return, were surprised to see a lamp on in the living room despite the door being locked. Bob’s mother and cousin Sandra looked inside and saw a short old man with long white hair run out of the living room.

Muise recounts several other supposed Pukwudgie encounters in other articles on the blog. For example, Joan was out in the Freetown-Fall River State Forest walking her dog on a spring day in the early 90s when she saw a two-foot-tall creature with grey skin standing on a rock and staring at her with large green eyes. She claimed that the creature followed her home and stalked her until she moved to a different county.

Another State Forest visitor named Tom claimed to have seen a Pukwudgie on two separate occasions. First, he was out on a nighttime walk when a small white light lured him over to a two-foot-tall man covered in hair with a wolf-like nose. The second incident occurred while he was in a parked car listening to the radio. Suddenly, he saw the same hairy little man staring at him 20 feet away. He was startled when the engine suddenly turned on of its own accord, and the radio blared, causing him to peel out in a hurry.

Fortunately, they seem to lose interest if you ignore them, so that’s good.

The Silver Lake Frog Monster

Not to be confused with the Silver Lake Monster of New York, information on this particular cryptid, said to inhabit Silver Lake in Plymouth County, seems relatively sparse. The only source I could find was the ever-reliable Jeff Muise of New England Folklore, who, in turn, learned about the amphibious humanoid from Loren Coleman’s Monsters of Massachusetts. Coleman didn’t give much detail; indeed, his coverage of the legend only covers one sentence:

For instance, the 'lake monster' accounts from Silver Lake in Plymouth County tell of a 'Giant Frog' or little 'Frogman' being sighted.
Loren Coleman, Monsters of Massachusetts: Mysterious Creatures of the Bay State

Muise even wrote to Coleman asking if he had more information, which the latter could not provide. He did eventually find a Boston Globe article that mentioned the creature, but once again, only in a single sentence:

In the 1940s and 1950s, there were reports of a “lake monster” — said to be a “Giant Frog” or little “Frogman” — in Plymouth County’s Silver Lake that were talked about around general stores and mentioned in passing in old newspaper articles.
-Boston Globe, “Monsters of New England,” October 25, 2013

In an article published on New England Folklore the following week, Muise commented on the similarities between the Silver Lake Frogman and the Deep Ones, the humanoid fish-people who serve as the antagonists of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth. He also tells of occultists like Kenneth Grant and Michael Beritaux who claim to have summoned creatures similar to the Deep Ones during magic rituals. Were they genuine magical manifestations or just the product of wishful altered minds? You make the call!

The Tawny Mystery Cats

The image above was taken on February 27, 2011, by West Brookfield resident Kevin Sloane. He and his wife scrambled to get their camera when they noticed this strange, out-of-place big cat crossing their backyard. Sloane estimated that the cat was about 150 feet away when the photo was taken. Once it left the scene, Sloane went outside and photographed its footprints. Some experts noted that the tracks looked similar to those of a mountain lion traveling quickly. The fact that a grey wolf (thought to be long since extirpated from the Bay State) was killed in Shelburne in October 2007 lent some plausibility to the theory that the Eastern cougar was alive and well in Worcester County.

Unfortunately, when Bill Davis, District Supervisor at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, examined the photos, he determined that the mystery cat was nothing more than an unusually large house cat. Still, as the blog Exploring Western Massachusetts noted, it is ironic that these photographs appeared in their inbox on the same day the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the Eastern cougar extinct.

Thunderbirds

Cryptozoologists have taken to referring to any alleged sighting of larger-than-normal birds as “thunderbirds,” even though they have less to do with the powerful supernatural storm gods of Native American folklore and more in common with the large Pleistocene-era birds of prey like Teratornis or Argentavis (or sometimes Mesozoic-era pterosaurs). And once again, they are yet another cryptid associated with the Bridgewater Triangle.

Perhaps the best record of supposed thunderbird sightings in the Triangle region that I could find is this one provided to the Bridgewater Public Library by Joseph DeAndrade (remember him from the Swamp Monster section?). The listed sightings, in chronological order, are as follows:

1971: A winged creature more than six feet tall with a wingspan of 8-12 feet is seen on Bird Hill (how appropriate) near Easton.

1984: A hiker sees a pair of “huge black prehistoric-looking birds” fighting each other while walking a riverside trail outside West Bridgewater.

1987: A hiker walking a dirt trail in Hockomock Swamp sees a flying animal with a 6-foot wingspan. They go on to describe the animal as having “a wrinkled black face, dark black feathers, and long brown legs that dangled behind it.”

1992: A man walking across the Bay Road bridge in Taunton is forced to hit the deck when “a huge black prehistoric-looking bird with a 10-12 foot wingspan” suddenly dives at him.

????: A motorist parked near the cemetery in West Bridgewater on route 28 is surprised to see a flying creature with a 10-12 foot wingspan pass over their car. They describe the creature as a winged humanoid.

What do you think? Are these oversized avains holdovers from Algonquin myth and legend? Are they survivors of a prehistoric age? Are they something else entirely? You decide.

And that’s all I have to say about Massachusetts cryptids. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information on Rippapotamus. My Google-fu could only yield me results on the regular old hippopotamus. Maybe a Massachusetts native knows what the hell that is? Leave a comment and let me know!

I’m still working on the “best animated series of 2023” list, but it’ll still be a while before that comes out. For now, though, I think I want to examine some conservative myths about the LGBTQ+ community and see how well they stand up to science. So stay tuned for that!