手机版

UFOs ――A Second Look

阅读 :

  Part I: The Truth is Out There

  To James and Fawn Clemens of Kingman, Ariz., the bright but fuzzy amber light hanging above the northwestern horizon seemed odd. It was 8 p.m., March 13, 1997, and the couple, both 42, were in their yard.

  Looking through binoculars, the Clemenses seemed to see five intense orange lights, in a "V" formation, heading southeast. Then reports began streaming into local law enforcement agencies, media outlets and civilian UFO groups.Retired Northwest Airlines Capt. Trig Johnston says an object the size of 25 airliners floated slowly and soundlessly past his home in north Scottsdale. "It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen," he told Reader's Digest. A 43-second videotape, recorded at 8:28 p.m. by a man in north Phoenix, shows five white lights in a "V" formation. At 8:30 p.m. the cockpit crew of an America West 757 airliner at 17,000 feet near Lake Pleasant, Ariz., noticed the lights off to their right and just above them.

  "There's a UFO!" co-pilot John Middleton said kiddingly to pilot Larry Campbell. They queried the regional air-traffic-control center in Albuquerque, N.M. A controller radioed back that it was a formation of CT-144s flying at 19,000 feet.

  Overhearing this exchange, someone claiming to be a pilot in the formation radioed Middleton. "We're Canadian Snowbirds flying Tutors," a man said.

  The Canadian Snowbirds are the elite air-show performance team of the Canadian air force. Snowbird pilots fly CT-144s, a two-seat training jet nicknamed the Tutor, which has a single landing light in its nose.

  But Capt. Michael Perry, squadron logistics officer for the Snowbirds, denied that any of his planes were in Arizona that month. "We don't travel in a V-shaped formation, and we don't cruise with landing lights on," he told Reader's Digest.

  Officials at Luke AFB in Phoenix, Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and Edwards AFB in Rosamund, Calif., all denied that any of their planes were responsible for the sightings. FAA officials profess to be baffled. "We don't have any knowledge of the incident," says Martin Hardy, the Phoenix air-traffic-control manager.

  Was it a secret military exercise, an elaborate hoax or something else? The mass sightings of whatever flew over northern Arizona that night have added new fuel to the UFO controversy.

  Part II: An Old Mystery

  Unexplained aerial phenomena have been observed for centuries, but the modern UFO era began in 1947, when there was an unprecedented number of reported sightings. Observers have offered a wide range of reasons for the surge from Cold War hysteria to visitors from outer space investigating nuclear explosions.

  The U.S. Air Force investigated some 12,618 sightings over the next 22 years. Most were explained as misidentifications of natural atmospheric phenomena, such as meteors or planets, or as weather balloons and other man-made flying craft. Still, 701 remained unexplained, and Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the Air Force's scientific consultant on UFOs, concluded that some of these could be extraterrestrial in origin.

  That view was challenged by a 1969 University of Colorado study funded by the Air Force, which examined 59 of the more celebrated cases. Some were also revealed as misidentifications or hoaxes. Although 23 still remained unexplained, project director Dr. Edward Condon concluded that no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation existed and "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified."

  Nevertheless, UFO reports continue, and interest in the subject remains widespread. In 1997 a panel of nine scientists from France, Germany and the United States, all affiliated with universities, laboratories and observatories, examined the reports of eight UFO investigators. The panel, funded by Laurance S. Rockefeller, a wealthy philanthropist long interested in the subject, took up cases where physical evidence of some sort existed such as radar trackings, damage to vegetation or documentable injuries to witnesses.The panel concluded that some of the incidents may have been due to rare atmospheric phenomena. They found no proof that any UFOs were extraterrestrial. But they didn't rule out the possibility either.

  The panel's report was met with skepticism from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a group that specializes in debunking fringe science. CSICOP fellow Philip J. Klass, a contributing editor at Aviation Week & Space Technology, dismisses the idea that UFOs are extraterrestrial: "In 50 years there hasn't been a single piece of credible physical evidence."

  Perhaps not. At any rate, I've taken a second look at a pair of the cases examined by the Rockefeller panel, interviewing eyewitnesses and reviewing official documents. Like the lights over Arizona, these episodes remain fascinating and mysterious.

  Part III: Molten Metal

  At 7:45 p.m. on December 17, 1977, Mike and Criss Moore, both 24, were driving to visit Mike's mother in Council Bluffs, Iowa, when they say they saw a bright red ball glowing above the treetops about a half-mile away. Three other individuals report watching an object fall in Big Lake Park. Motorists who converged on the site found a pond levee glowing red-orange from a mass of molten metal that was boiling over the frozen ground. Council Bluffs assistant fire chief Jack Moore, Mike's father, arrived within 15 minutes to discover "a big puddle of metal about four inches thick, bubbling and red in spots." Local astronomer Robert Allen forwarded samples of the debris to metallurgists at Iowa State University and the U.S. Air Force's Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. The sample was composed chiefly of iron with small amounts of nickel and chromium, making it carbon steel. "Analytic results make it highly unlikely that the material is of meteoric origin," reported Robert S. Hansen, director of the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State. Government scientists offered no explanation for the object's origin, but were certain the material was unrelated to military or space projects. "Re-entering spacecraft debris does not impact the earth's surface in a molten state," Col. Charles Senn wrote to Allen in 1978. Was this an elaborate hoax? Allen could find only one local foundry with the equipment to produce molten metals. It had not been operating the night of the incident. "Even then," adds Allen, "no one can explain how a thousand pounds of molten metal could have been dropped from such a height."

更多 英文美文英语美文英文短文英语短文,请继续关注 英语作文大全

散文
本文标题:UFOs ――A Second Look - 英语短文_英语美文_英文美文
本文地址:http://www.dioenglish.com/writing/essay/49014.html

相关文章

  • 成功男人的秘诀

      导语:每个成功男人的背后都有一个默默支持他的女人,这个经典言论居然被推翻了,原来仅仅支持是不够的,最重要的是:不碍事儿。 The secret of success may be a spouse who stands at your side - but keeps out...

    2018-12-14 英语短文
  • 英语美文:拖船的哲理

       One night many years ago I was on the bridge of a ship that passed one of our large cities on a quiet night. I saw its lights reflected in the sky and heard the rumblings of the ci...

    2019-03-14 英语短文
  • 感恩节之温馨快乐祝福语

      From all of us to all of you at Thanksgiving.  我们全体祝你们感恩节快乐。  Thanksgiving wishes for you and your family.  给你们全家感恩节的祝福。  I wish you could be here on Thanksgiv...

    2018-12-08 英语短文
  • Super-fun Pranks to Pull on Your Sister That Actually Work

    捉弄我们的兄弟姐妹有很多的乐趣,如果想对他们恶作剧,需要考虑的唯一一件事就是使之意想不到,将他们彻底的震惊。...

    2019-01-26 英语短文
  • 旧约 -- 创世记(Genesis) -- 第22章

      22:1 这些事以后,神要试验亚伯拉罕,就呼叫他说,亚伯拉罕,他说,我在这里。  And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.  2...

    2018-12-11 英语短文
  • 幸福的本质---幸福不等于娱乐:幸福相关英语美文欣赏

    i live in hollywood. you may think people in such a glamorous, fun-filled place are happier than others. if so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.我住在好莱坞。你...

    2018-10-30 英语短文
  • An Extra Ten Minutes

      On Monday afternoons at two o' clock, Beau and I would arrive at the Silver Spring Convalescent1 Center on Milwaukee' s northeast side of town for an hour of pet therapy with the seniors who li...

    2018-12-09 英语短文
  • 选择了美好,每日便能安眠

      It's quiet. It's early. My coffee is hot.  The sky is still black. The world is still asleep.  The day is coming. In a few moments the day will arrive.  It will roar down the track with...

    2018-12-14 英语短文
  • 如果有来生 我会抓住每一秒

      如果有来生,我会少说,多听;我会请朋友来家里吃饭,即使把地毯弄脏;如果有来生,我会点燃那支雕成玫瑰状的蜡烛,不让它在尘封中融化;我会与孩子们坐在草地上,不去担心草地上的污渍……如果有来生,我会说更多的“我爱你”…...

    2018-12-14 英语短文
  • Monsters University《怪兽大学》--成功不是只有一种形式

      还记得《怪兽电力公司》(Monster, Inc.)中笑料不断的大眼仔Mike和长毛怪Sulley吗?这两个活宝是皮克斯动画工作室历史上首次创作的以正面形象出现的怪兽,在2001年上映的《怪兽电力公司》中,他们为保护小...

    2019-03-14 英语短文
你可能感兴趣