ALAMOSA - As the man who attempted to auction off the bones of a San Luis Valley icon sat in the audience of about 60 people Friday night, paranormal investigator-author Christopher O'Brien admonished him and any others who harbor designs to send "Snippy" the horse from the area to beware.

"Whoever allows that relic to leave the San Luis Valley better have an impressive army of angels. This is a very sacred valley," O'Brien, of Sedona, Ariz., who has investigated the paranormal here for almost 20 years, said.

Snippy, an Appaloosa, whose real name was "Lady," was found mutilated on the King Ranch in the Sangre de Cristo foothills not far from the Great Sand Dunes and Zapata Falls in September 1967. Her owner maintained it had to be the work of extraterrestrial beings.

The story went worldwide.

Snippy was a misnomer created by the news media and actually was Lady's sire's name. The real Snippy lived well into the 1970s, O'Brien said.

Lady, aka Snippy, was Nellie Lewis' horse; the real Snippy, her husband Berle Lewis' horse. Lewis is 93. His wife committed suicide in 1976 the day her mother, King Ranch owner Agnes King, was buried in the pioneer cemetery of Uracca, not far from the ranch, O'Brien said.

The Lewises gave Snippy's remains to a local veterinarian. When the vet left the area, he gave them to Adams State College biology professor Hobart Dixon, who was persuaded by a friend in 1970 to give them to the chamber of commerce for display.

The skeleton later turned up in the estate of the late Carl Helfin, who died about five years ago.

Local businessman Frank Duran prepared a Web site, www.snippy.com, for the famous remains and put them on eBay asking $50,000 for the Helfin heirs, but pulled them from the site after Alamosa County Chamber of Commerce manager Debra Goodman and Mrs. Lewis' relatives raised the issue of ownership.

Friday, Coleasha Gonzales, Mrs. Lewis' great-niece and great-granddaughter of Agnes King, said the family is supporting the chamber's bid to get the horse's skeleton back. No one knows how it got away from the chamber in the first place.

"We feel very strongly about Snippy. She wasn't sold then (when she was given to the vet) and she shouldn't be sold now," Mrs. Gonzales said.

Frank Duran sat stone-faced throughout the almost two-hour presentation, but afterward bought a CD and DVD created by O'Brien and donated to the Save Snippy campaign.

On Friday, however, attempts by O'Brien to view the bones of the horse at Dell's Insurance, where Duran has the skeleton, were denied.

Goodman, who launched the campaign two weeks ago and who has established a Save Snippy Fund at First Southwest Bank, called the bones a "priceless artifact."

She said they would be better off in the valley as a tourist attraction and for economic development.

O'Brien said he did not know what caused the horse's death but pointed to a number of global situations - the Gulf of Tonkin affair, 1960s cultural upheaval and the explosion of LSD usage - as possible triggers for the sacrifice of the horse as a message to mankind, perhaps by American Indians, who view horses as sacred.

"I have a really bad feeling of what can happen on this planet. We are headed for interesting times," O'Brien said.

"I am not saying Snippy's staying here will save the world, but things are coming together, and there is powerful magic," he said

"It's imperative these bones, that relic, stay in the valley. It would be like taking St. Peter's bones out from under St. Peter's (in Rome)."

For information on O'Brien's CDs and DVDs, which he has donated to the chamber's cause, contact the chamber, 719-589-3681 or the Web site, www.savesnippy.com.

Donations can be made to Save Snippy, Alamosa County Chamber of Commerce, 300 Chamber Drive, Alamosa, CO 81101.

Goodman said Saturday that the campaign has raised about $4,000, a far cry from the $50,000 Duran wants for the Helfin heirs.