Most people associate the word "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" with the fictional character seen in supermarket tabloids.  Most people are not aware that the cartoonish "Bigfoot" figure is a distorted product of ancient and modern stories describing a real, but unacknowledged species that is still occasionally observed today in North American forests.

Stories about these animals extend far back into pre-history among linguistically distinct native American tribes. The modern existence of these animals is summarily dismissed by much of the scientific community. The subject is never given much consideration, for a variety of reasons which are almost completely unique to this issue. The top skeptical argument is that physical remains of at least one specimen would have been delivered to scientists by the public by now. The vastness of the otherwise uninhabited territories, and the brevity of our own presence in the Americas, is rarely taken into full consideration by those who honestly argue from the skeptical perspective.

In many communities it is politically risky for professional academics to discuss the subject among themselves, much less consider probing it for a seed of truth, primarily because of the popular folklorish image created by supermarket tabloids.

Tabloid literature and films have also created the cliche image of the "monster hunter" scientist. "Monster hunter" has actually become a catch phrase among biologists, anthropologists, etc. It is not meant as a compliment. Academics learn to avoid that derogatory label. In this way the academic environment largely discourages serious discussion of the subject.

Until now this subject has never been examined closely, in the field, by the academic community, or even openly discussed as part of any standard college curriculum. The most commonly stated reason: An assumption that a body of a Sasquatch would have been found and publicly examined by now, like every other large mammal in North America. In this scenario it is usually assumed that someone would have shot one, or someone would have hit one with a vehicle, or stimply stumble across the body of one, or its bones, skull, teeth, etc. The odds of those scenarios, given all the circumstances, including the rarity of the species and the vastness of their range, are rarely intelligently deconstructed. Some people understand the landscape of the Americas from lots of first hand experience. These outdoorsy types will be more likely to tell colleagues the reality of the situation -- the existence of these creatures is still entirely possible in the Americas, in modern times. Colleagues from mainly urban backgrounds are usually the most skeptical. It's easy for urbanites buy into the skeptical logic: "If any Sasquatches still exist in the Americas, at least one would have been caught by now, or at least photographed well."

The debate reveals how widely varied our landscape experience is. The urban perception (the majority of the population) is that forest and wilderness habitats have been reduced to patches and islands in the sea of modern human development, when the reality is still the diametric opposite in most parts of the Americas.

"Bigfoot research," which first began in the late 1950's,  is primarily the inquiry as to whether thousands of credible modern eyewitnesses are actually seeing a surviving species of giant primate that is known to have existed, but is widely assumed to be extinct. Bigfoot research also seeks answers for a variety of peripheral questions, such as why so little is known about these animals, why no remains have been recognized by the scientific community in the Americas, and why so little photographic documentation exists, to contrast with the thousands of credible eyewitness reports, and otherwise unexplanable residual evidence.

The most controversial aspect of the entire bigfoot / sasquatch topic stems from the confusion surrouding the term "Bigfoot".  First coined in the late 1950's, the public is now more familiar with the fictional solitary "Bigfoot" character of the supermarket tabloids. Yet people who have sightings of the real animals in the wild almost always use the word bigfoot to describe what they have seen, mainly because no other word in our popular vocabulary evokes the appearance of these animals better. To add to the confusion, the word, even as used by bigfoot researchers, sometimes means both the singular and the plural form, like the word "deer". As a consequence the public often assumes that bigfoot research is the tongue-in-cheek pursuit of a solitary, fictional tabloid character. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The serious scientific investigators probing the topic view it as a fascinating, unsolved natural mystery. For some intellectuals, the most interesting aspect is society's reaction to the topic. Some note how most Americans will profess a belief in things they have never seen, such as God and Jesus, but the same Americans will quickly ridicule honest eyewitnesses to these animals, even if those eyewitnesses are their most trusted family members.

"Bigfoot" means different things to different people, depending upon how much they know about the subject. People who are little more than grocery store customers laugh at the word. Many historians, scientists, and intellectuals know more of the background and therefore understand it on a different level.

There have been several commercial usages of the term bigfoot. The two most recognized usages are 1) Bigfoot, the famous "monster truck" (i.e. a pickup truck with giant wheels that performs stunts at arena rallies), and 2) Bigfoot.com a free e-mail service on the Internet. Commercial uses of the term are designed to evoke the idea of dominating largeness.

"Sasquatch" is the Canadian term for these same animals. It is a derivative of the Coast Salish Indian word "Sesquac" meaning "wild man". Various Indian tribes across North America have their own terms, such as "Omah", "Windego", "Yeahoh", "Tsiatko", "Boqs", and "Rugaru". Early white settlers in various regions had their own regional names, such as "Skookums", "Skunk Apes", "Swamp Boogers", and "Mountain Devils".