Twilight Language: Mutologist Chris O'Brien Meets A Sudden End

On Sunday morning, November 24, 2024, Christopher O'Brien, well-known author of several works on his investigations of unexplained phenomena (including UFOs, UAPs, and cattle mutilations) was experiencing what he thought was a "panic attack." He decided to drive himself to a near-by hospital in Sedona, Arizona, where he was living at the time. He died on route, although official details were initially incomplete.

*BREAKING*

This following statement is just in from Ron James, the producer whose house Chris was staying at in Sedona. James was away when the events unfolded.

Ron James writes that Chris was...

"helping me with the sequel to my film Accidental Truth when he experienced catastrophic breathing difficulties and tried to drive himself to the emergency room. He probably lost consciousness, due to not being able to breathe, and subsequently crashed his car into a stone sign and was fatally wounded.

"I've known Chris for over 25 years and he has helped me on five of my documentary films. I am working on more information and a more formal announcement. I was in San Francisco at the SOL conference when this happened.

"On the way back to Sedona, I asked my departed friend to give me a sign. Before going home, I stopped by the scene of the accident. This is what I found. Thank you my friend for years of loyalty and friendship."

Photos by Ron James/Facebook/Nov 25/2025

Chris' Life

David Perkins, Tom Adams, and Gary Massey would join Chris O'Brien in an unstructured early group of researchers involved in what David called "the fledgling study dubbed ~ tongue-in-cheek - Mutology."

Here are the beginnings of how Chris got deeply enmeshed in Mutology. One small point. Chris outlasted the members of the group who died before him (see the list of obits at the end here). Until this weekend, Chris was the lone and last "survivor."

Chris was born on March 24, 1957, in Medina, Washington State. He went to Kentridge High (Class of 1975), and attended Lehman College of the City University of New York. He studied media, geology, anthropology, and music from 1975-1978 and in 1980. He was an investigative journalist, author, tv/radio spokesperson, sonic sculpturist, and an aspiring techno shaman.

Chris O young Chris O'Brien in 2000.

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Christopher O'Brien, Unsolved Mysteries, Season 17 (October 2, 2024),

Volume 5, Overall Episode 610, "Mysterious Mutilations."

Most recently, when not traveling, visiting friends, and staying with them, Chris lived alone in Chemung, New York.

Since 1992, Christopher O'Brien investigated over one thousand unexplained events reported in the San Luis Valley--located in South-central Colorado/North Central New Mexico (the location of the initial "Snippy the Horse" incident). Working with law enforcement officials, ex-military, ranchers and an extensive network of skywatchers, from 1992 to 2002, Chris 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 associated 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.

Chris recently was 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 2009 book Stalking the Tricksters distilled his years of field investigation and research into an unified paranormal theory.

stalking chris

His last major book Stalking the Herd (600 pages) has been called "The Bible of cattle mutilations books."

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O'Brien, an entertaining, thought-provoking speaker was a frequent guest on Coast-to-Coast AM and hundreds of other radio shows. He has also been seen on several broadcast TV programs such as: Ancient Aliens, Weird or What, Conspiracy Theory, and UFO Hunters.

Starting in the early 1990s, 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.

Chris 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 Disclosure Dialogues which won two EBE Film Festival Awards. 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 wrote 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.

Chris' investigation and research were 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 several decades, he was a perennial guest lecturer at Adam's State College and he captivated conference and seminar audiences 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).

Chris' involvement in Strange Universe and his co-produced film w/ Ron James, It Could Happen Tomorrow, won two 2012 EBEs for Best Feature and the Peoples Choice Award. His latest James' co-production, Accidental Truth (2023) won seven film festival awards. He also co-produced/creative consulted for James Fox's recent award winning films The Phenomenon (2021) and Moment of Contact (2023). Recent work has been for the program, Beyond Skinwalker Ranch. Christopher O'Brien was the major interviewee on Unsolved Mysteries, Season 17 (October 2, 2024), in the episode "Mysterious Mutilations."

Chris also worked under the name KK Barnes with Michael Esposito.

Throughout the 2000s, Christopher O'Brien was a frequent speaker at Para-conferences in the USA, as well as doing podcasts.

His input and insights will be missed.

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