Secrets of the Mysterious Valley [Paperback]

Christopher O'Brien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2007

An all-new freshly updated work by one of America’s top paranormal investigators. Take a fantastic journey through one of the world’s most enigmatic locales -- the world’s largest alpine valley, spanning South/Central Colorado and North Central New Mexico. The San Luis is rife with strange activity, including a large number of documented UFO reports, unusual animal deaths, Native American legends, cryptozoology, and secret military bases. San Luis Valley is also the publicized birthplace of the 'cattle mutilation' mystery. Is hidden, haunted San Luis Valley America’s Most Anomalous Region? No other region in North America features the variety and intensity of unusual phenomena, and since 1989, Christopher O’Brien has documented thousands of strange reports.

Product Details

• Paperback: 441 pages
• Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press (May 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931882665
• ISBN-13: 978-1931882668
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Since 1992, Christopher O'Brien has investigated over one thousand paranormal events reported in the San Luis Valley--located in South-central Colorado/North Central New Mexico. Working with law enforcement officials, ex-military, ranchers and an extensive network of skywatchers, from 1992 to 2002 he documented one of the most intense waves of unexplained activity ever reported from a single geographic region of North America. His ten-year investigation resulted in the three books of his "mysterious valley" trilogy, The Mysterious Valley, Enter the Valley, and Secrets of the Mysterious Valley. His meticulous field investigation of UFO reports, unexplained livestock deaths, Native American legends, cryptozoology, secret military activity and the folklore, found in the world's largest alpine valley, has produced one of the largest databases of unusual occurrences gathered from a single geographic region. He is currently working with a team of specialists installing a high-tech video surveillance and hard-data monitoring system in and around the San Luis Valley. His latest book Stalking the Tricksters has been released by Adventures Unlimited Press. This controversial book distills his years of field investigation and research into an ingenious unified paranormal theory that is sure to create intense interest and controversy.

Media Projects
O'Brien, an entertaining, thought-provoking speaker, is the co-host for the popular radio program, The Paracast and he has been a guest on Coast-to-Coast and hundreds of other radio shows. He has also been seen on recently broadcast TV programs such as: Ancient Aliens, Weird or What, Conspiracy Theory and UFO Hunters. Starting in the early '90s, Chris developed, supplied footage, field-produced and appeared in four segments of the Paramount television program Sightings and was featured on Inside Edition, Extra, Showtime's Sci-Friday Chronicles, the TBS documentary "UFO: The Search; the BBC2 program Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, Nippon TV's Special Research 2000, the Discovery Channel's two-hour documentary, Billion $ Secret (with Jane's Defence Weekly's Nick Cook,) the TV series UFO Files, Exploring the Unknown, The Unexplained, Secrets of:, Profiles in Ufology, Unexplained Mysteries and in the English documentary film Mutilation Files. At home in front or behind the camera, O'Brien has field-produced and directed television segments for the nationally syndicated paranormal news-magazine Strange Universe. For five years he was a consulting producer and writer/researcher for Stage 3 [Television] Productions where he also wrote and produced History, Mystery and Greed: the Story of Snippy the Horse, and co-produced the documentaries Dead Whisper and the just-released Disclosure Dialogues. Inspired by his field-research, Chris co-wrote an action/adventure film screenplay, Deadly Waters, that was judged Honorable Mention in the 1998 Southwest Screenwriter's Guild Contest.

Since 1993, he has written articles that have appeared in Open Minds, Fate, UFO Universe, Leading Edge, CyberWest, Western Spirit, World Exploror's Club Magazine, Crestone Eagle, Phenomena, Zeitgeist and UFO Encounters. His investigation and research have been featured in the Associated Press, Denver Post, Pueblo Chieftain, the New Mexican, the Rocky Mountain News, the Albuquerque Journal, the Deseret News, The Red Rock News, UFO Magazine, Phenomenon, (France) OVNI (Spain), Borderline (Japan). An entertaining and thought-provoking speaker for seven years he was a perennial guest lecturer at Adam's State College and he has captivated conference and seminar audiences around the USA with his unique insight into some of our culture's last remaining mysteries. He also hosted his own regional Colorado/New Mexico radio show, Mysterious Valley Report (1996-1999), and published the bi-monthly Mysterious Valley Report (1993-2000).

A keyboard player/music-producer, he markets reproductions of classic Maya art for his brother's company Tierra Maya at his home near Sedona, AZ.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book, but...., December 8, 2007

By 

Ashfan (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Secrets of the Mysterious Valley (Paperback)

...my God, what happened to editing? I have never read such a poorly edited book in my life. Misspelled words abound, there are single letters stuck in the middle of sentences, as well as repeated sentences and paragraphs. There are even sentences that make absolutely no sense in the context of the paragraph in which they are located or that are missing such basic requirements as a subject or verb. An occasional error can be expected, but these errors appear on page after page.

In addition to errors in composition, the manuscript was poorly edited for tightness. For example, how many times in the space of two pages do we have to be told that Laurance Rockefeller has a degree in philosophy from Princeton. We get it, already. Move on.

This is the third book published by APU that I have read and it will be the last. The first two had more than their share of errors, but this one takes the cake. There are plenty of interesting books out there to be read that are comprehensible.

That said, once you manage to wade through the terrible editing, there are some interesting stories in the book. Mr. O'Brien has a refreshing way of looking at things, and a very sensible way of investigating what is virtually uninvestigatable (is that a word?). He shows a real, logical concern for problems such as the investigator interjecting himself into the subject under investigation, which shows a level of thought and analysis that few investigators of the unknown are intelligent enough to develop. I just wish that someone had taken the time to give his manuscript the editing that it so obviously needed and deserved. If you are truly interested in the subject, read the book, but be prepared for hours of frustration just trying to decipher what Mr. O'Brien is trying to communicate. If you just want an overview of the mysterious San Luis Valley, read one of Mr. O'Brien's earlier, far more readable books.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic and Real, September 6, 2007

By 

JAY BREMYER (McPherson, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of the Mysterious Valley (Paperback)

As a half-time resident of the San Luis Valley (the "Mysterious Valley" of the title) in south central Colorado, I have followed and appreciated Chris O'Brien's work for several years. Unlike many professional journalists who write about anomalous phenomena such as UFOs and Unusual Animal Deaths, O'Brien sticks with the facts and avoids sensationalizing or promoting unwarranted inferences. He is not a "believer" searching for support but rather an open eyed, intelligent, and often courageous student of inexplicable, mysterious events that occur here in our isolated valley at a rate and with a bizarre intensity and long history perhaps unmatched any other place in the world. Like in the first two books focused on the "Valley," O'Brien presents himself as narrator on the ground learning as he goes, inspired, frustrated at times, devoted to trying to understand, constantly working to widen his frame of reference so as to not distort objective observation. It's a true picture, beautifully told, one bound to stimulate more realistic thinking about what is really going on here. Five cheers! Keep up the good work!!!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Poorly Edited Mess, February 11, 2008

By 

Mary F. Rau - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of the Mysterious Valley (Paperback)

After reading Christopher O'Briens first two excellent books, The Mysterious Valley and Enter the Valley, I eagerly awaited his third promised book.

Upon recently reading Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, I found it to be a rehash of the same material in his first two books. On one hand this was very disappointing to me, yet on the other it was good to see all the material meshed together, especially since it had been awhile since I read the first two books. There is very little new information here, which the reader will find at some point is partly due to the author's moving from the valley to Sedona in I believe 2001. He still keeps in touch with a group of "watchers" in the valley who report to him.

While the content is fascinating, this has to be one of the most poorly edited books I have ever read. We have much repetition within the book itself, run-on sentences, missing words that leave one with the need to interpret the author's meaning, extra words, sentences with words that are run together, too much punctuation, too little punctuation, different typefaces that do not appear to be deliberate, a repeated portion of a chapter, some photos that are not addressed within the chapter where they are placed, word forms used incorrectly, words and names not spelled correctly, and etcetera, etcetara, etcetera, as the King of Siam would say. With that run-on sentence of my own, I will leave other readers to find the rest of the errors.

I am not saying don't buy this book, especially if you have not read the first two, but hopefully there will be a new edition available that is properly edited. I think Christopher O'Brien's diligent work and research into the anomolous happenings in the San Luis Valley is laudable and I hope to see another book from him on the strange happenings in the Sedona area.

As one final note, the book gives no credit to the artist of the cover design, which I find very intriguing.

And as a second final note, there are two websites listed in the book, one of which give updates on the happenings in the San Luis Valley. I find this very helpful as when I read the first two books I could not find any website for Christopher O'Brien.