Legend of Bigfoot: Discovery? Try Hoax.

Legend of Bigfoot?

Instead of proving the existence of Bigfoot, Meldrum said profiteering antics like Biscardi's lend support to the cynics.

"Unfortunately, this kind of incident simply just casts further aspersion on the topic," he said.

Still, despite rampant skepticism within the community of Bigfoot believers and outside of it, there's also overwhelming interest.

"There's always an interest in these creatures, dating back hundreds of years -- mermaids, unicorns, dragons," said Benjamin Radford, managing editor of the science magazine The Skeptical Inquirer and a widely published writer on urban legends, Bigfoot and media criticism. "There isn't a populated place on earth that doesn't have these kinds of creatures."

But regardless of the doubts, most longtime Bigfoot devotees will be tuned in to Friday's news.

Loren Coleman, a prolific writer on the Sasquatch, Yeti and other mysterious creatures, said he thinks this is going to be one of the biggest Bigfoot stories of the decade, even it turns out to be hoax.

When it comes to the alleged creature, he says he doesn't use the word "believe."

"I accept or deny evidence. Based upon the evidence we have [about Bigfoot], 80 percent is proof and 20 percent is myth," he said.

With this one body found in Georgia, however, it's "99 percent a hoax and 1 percent a probability of reality," he said.

But he's still excited about the alleged discovery.

"I'll never turn down a chance to look at a body because it could be real, and we can't choose the accident of history. … The most undesirable people might be the ones to discover it, but who am I to judge them."