  We use deep and wide near infrared (NIR) imaging from the Palomar telescope
combined with DEEP2 spectroscopy and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and Chandra
Space Telescope imaging to investigate the nature of galaxies that are red in
NIR colors. We locate these `distant red galaxies' (DRGs) through the color cut
(J-K)_{vega} > 2.3 over 0.7 deg^{2}, where we find 1010 DRG candidates down to
K_s = 20.5. We combine 95 high quality spectroscopic redshifts with photometric
redshifts from BRIJK photometry to determine the redshift and stellar mass
distributions for these systems, and morphological/structural and X-ray
properties for 107 DRGs in the Extended Groth Strip. We find that many bright
(J-K)_{vega}>2.3 galaxies with K_s<20.5 are at redshifts z<2, with 64% between
1<z<2. The stellar mass distributions for these galaxies is broad, ranging from
10^{9}-10^{12} M_solar, but with most z>2 systems massive with M_*>10^{11}
M_solar. HST imaging shows that the structural properties and morphologies of
DRGs are also diverse, with the majority elliptical/compact (57%), and the
remainder edge-on spirals (7%), and peculiar galaxies (29%). The DRGs at z <
1.4 with high quality spectroscopic redshifts are generally compact, with small
half light radii, and span a range in rest-frame optical properties. The
spectral energy distributions for these objects differ from higher redshift
DRGs: they are bluer by one magnitude in observed (I-J) color. A pure IR color
selection of high redshift populations is not sufficient to identify unique
populations, and other colors, or spectroscopic redshifts are needed to produce
homogeneous samples.
