Welcome to "The Lima Project"! This site is devoted to an ongoing investigation into the possible existence of an unknown biped, living in and around the area known as The Lima Marsh located in NE Rock County, Wisconsin. At the present time my primary focus is data collection. I'm sharing that data with my research partner who will be joining me onsite as soon as the evidence points to the likelihood of any current activity.
According to Linda Godfrey, author of the books "The Beast of Bray Road" and "Hunting the American Werewolf" there have been two sightings reported in this area. The reports suggest that it more closely resembles bigfoot, rather than a werewolf. Whether this is true, or if the witnesses simply missed some details that may have suggested the werewolf, only time will tell. The first sighting occured on March 9, 2005 along Highway 59 near the Lima Marsh by a 22 year old college student on her way home from work. The second sighting occured along McCord Road, only a few weeks later. For full details of these sightings visit Linda Godfrey's Update Page.
The investigation into this area will be ongoing, so please stop in regularly to see if there are any new developments.
This first picture was taken of the wooded area very near the location described at Linda Godfrey's site. As you can see this area is quite heavily wooded, and one's ability to see very far is hampered considerably by the dense underbrush. You can also see that these are all decidious trees and not pines or firs. Also notice the trees with the white bark on them, which are shown better in the next picture.
For those of you who might not recognize the trees with the white bark, those are birch trees. The significant detail about birch trees is that they have shallow root systems, and can't survive in areas where the water level is very deep. They need soil that remains cool and moist in order for them to survive, which is why they are found regularly around lakes and marshes. Even if one could not see the marshy land, they would know it's there because of the birch trees.
I also found a large number of these berries in the area near where the sighting took place. So far I haven't identified them, so I'm not sure they are even edible, at least as far as a human consuming them. However, none of the berry bushes along the side of the road seemed to have been picked on by any animals, including birds. But knowing they are in the area, means they probably exist even beyond the edge of the woods, and provide a possible food source. As I said it doesn't look like even the birds have touched them, so I tend to think they are probably inedible but if these can survive I would think other types of berries would as well.
I also came across this interesting feature which appears to be a trackway, or path being used by something. I didn't venture into the woods here because all of the land in this area is posted as No Trespassing. Looking just at the area where it exits onto the edge of the roadway, you can see where something stepped over the grass at the opening, and then down into the ditch. The bad part about this area is that the grasses are so thick, you don't see distinct footprints for the most part just tramped down areas. This was the only area along this heavily wooded area where I saw a distinct opening into the woods.
These two pictures are the same, but the bottom picture outlines the area I'm talking about for you to visualize easier. This is one of the cornfields found at the southern end of McCord Road. Again we have what appears to be an obvious pathway coming from the cornfield, then down onto the roadway. And once again this was the only apparent pathway I found along the edge of this particular cornfield. I also didn't venture far here either, due to it being posted land. I did get close enough to examine the dirt at the edge of the field, and saw no visible tracks, maybe due to the current dryness of the soil here. If in fact this path was being used by deer you can usually discern their hoof marks even in dry soil, so deer are questionable.
As the day drew to a close, I had to stop for a few minutes to admire the sunset over Lima Marsh, but only for a few minutes. The setting sun seemed to set off an alarm to those nasty little boogers we know as "Skeeters" to get out there and start sucking some blood! Well it seems that the light frost we had the other day wasn't hard enough to kill those little pests! I could have worn some repellent, but my thinking is why give whatever is out there even a stronger warning that I'm in the area. A good hard frost shouldn't be too far away, and that will make venturing into the swamp a little less painful.
You'll have to excuse the quality of the videos, as that's what happens at many of the online sites where you can upload and store your videos. They usually store them in a compressed format which makes the file smaller, but at the same time degrades the quality.
This first video is another "Ride Along" video, like the first one I made in June when I drove on Willow Drive along the southern edge of Lima Marsh. This time we drive north on McCord road, the location of the sighting in April-May 2005. It might be interesting to note that it seems many of the roads that are the locations of sightings in this area, tend to be short roads. Taking an educated guess I think the reason for that may be due to lack of traffic. It gives them a place to travel through where there is less chance of being observed. Maybe on purpose, or simply because thats the nature of the beast (no pun intended).
The second video from today's trip is taken out of the passenger side window as I pass by the wooded area most likely the location of the sighting described above. You'll see how dense the woods are, as well as the swampy area at the north end of the wooded area.