Man hopes to prove Bigfoot exists in West Va.

The original article is no longer live so I've quoted some of the text below.

CHARLESTON, W.Va.--Kanawha County resident and country singer Kris Allen says he has experienced sightings of Bigfoot since he was 8 years old and didn't know what name to give to the creatures.

He's scared of them yet determined to track and capture proof of the creatures he believes are prevalent in rural areas of West Virginia, including Charleston's own Kanawha State Forest.

Allen has persuaded Bigfoot tracker Tom Biscardi to bring a team to West Virginia next Friday in hopes of getting film proof of Bigfoot creatures. Biscardi says it will be a filming of a filming, actually, because a film crew from California-based Golden Leaf Pictures has been following Biscardi's pursuits around the country with the intention, Biscardi says, of producing a 3-D film about him and Bigfoot next spring. A phone message and e-mail to Golden Leaf received no response.

Biscardi is a colorful and sometimes controversial cryptozoology enthusiast - that's a person who searches for animals considered legendary or nonexistent in the world of mainstream biology.

Some contend Biscardi has been at the middle of several Bigfoot hoaxes, a contention Biscardi tosses off.

"You know what? That's OK. People need to talk," Biscardi said. "There's one real Bigfoot hunter and that's Tom Biscardi and his team. When you're at the top of the heap, you're going to have imitators. The proof is in the pudding of my work - that's the key."

Biscardi says he has debunked stories of creature sightings, too. He says he has spent 30 years tracking Bigfoot - what he believes to be an entire species of creatures that live in rural areas of the United States.

By his estimation, the creatures called Bigfoot are a healthy and reproducing species that have increased in population. He believes there are as many as 5,000 to 7,000 of them traveling in family pods.

He says West Virginia's rural terrain makes it a natural habitat for Bigfoot.

Biscardi plans to bring a truckload of high-tech equipment including video cameras with night-vision capabilities and set them up in or around Kanawha State Forest next weekend.

"There's been a rash of sightings there, bona fide, to boot," Biscardi said from Arizona, where his crew currently is working.

He said he's talked to Allen numerous times over the last eight or nine months and decided Allen's sightings were legitimate and reason to come here.

"He comes with a lot of credibility. And he and his wife have been having these sightings of these creatures, these primates," Biscardi said. "Just last Saturday, he and his son had the most recent sighting.

"These creatures are on their migrational path right now. Right now, they're in abundance. And because of the weather, you're experiencing this a lot sooner than the West Coast."

Biscardi said his crews set up cameras from 10 p.m. until about 3 a.m., because Bigfoot creatures are nocturnal. He'll set up a command post and a series of cameras, some of which will be monitored all night by closed-circuit TV and some that will be left in place and then checked the next morning.

Biscardi could be here as long as three days, but says he often knows within 24 hours if it's a "hot area."

Allen notified the West Virginia Film Office of Biscardi's plans.

Pam Haynes, director of the office, said, "We're doing what we normally do when any film company contacts us." For example, Haynes said her staff will help locate film sites if necessary.

Allen also has been working to help secure permission to film in Kanawha State Forest overnight. The park typically is closed from 10 p.m. until morning. If permission cannot be secured, Allen said there are plenty of sites just outside the park that can be used.

He said he and his wife, Carrie Hammond, who has worked as a naturalist in the forest, have had numerous sightings there.

But his sightings have occurred since he was just 8 and saw a creature in a tree in Chelyan one evening, a sighting also witnessed by his parents, siblings and neighbors.

Allen, a country singer who currently performs with his band, Southern Thunder, said he's both fearful and fascinated by Bigfoot.

A sighting at Sherwood Lake in Greenbrier County about 15 years ago opened a "Pandora's box" for him, he said. He says he saw two creatures, 7 and 10 feet tall, ripping bark from trees in the woods.

"From there on, I became an investigator," he said. "I have spent countless hours in the woods with cameras. I have taken hundreds of photos of foot tracks. I have feces from them. They are omnivorous and nocturnal."

A diver, Allen says he has witnessed huge footprints at the bottom of Sherwood Lake that could not possibly be human.

Allen said he hopes the top-of-the-line equipment Biscardi and his crew possess will do the job and prove once and for all that Bigfoot is alive and well in West Virginia.

"A lot of people don't talk about the strange things they see in the woods because they don't want people to laugh at them," he said.

"I want proof. I want proof that the world can see. I don't want anyone to doubt me again."