Unit 1

2001 年 12 月 26 日傍晚 5 时 04 分 杭州

2005 年 1 月 5 日清晨 7 点 30 分北京

2005 年 11 月 5 日在永康大寒山

The world we live in is full of mysteries unsolved even by today’s advanced science and technology.

Do you know more stories about these

things?

UFOs are unidentified flying objects, but no one really knows what they are.

The chances for seeing a UFO are greater for those people who live in small towns or in the country and are outside late at night.

UFOs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are only small spots of light that move in strange patterns across the night sky.

Some can be seen in the daytime are often disk- or saucer-shaped.

Yeti

The yeti is a humanlike monster who is supposed to live in the Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world. Several sightings, mainly of footprints, have been reported by westerner explorers throughout the years. Yet none of them have been supported with evidence in any way.

Himalayasthe highest mountain range in the world

Yeti Abominable Snowman Half-man and half-beast

•Where is Himalayas? What’s the weather like there?•Why do some people make great efforts to climb it? •Yeti is reported to be half-man and half-beast, have you heard of it? •Do you think some climbers’ disappearance have some connections with Yeti?

Loch Ness the largest of a series of interlinked lochs, or lakes, located in northern one of Scotland’s top tourist attractions.

Lock Ness Monster

On the 21st December 1933, the Daily Mail carried the following headline: "Monster of Loch Ness is not a Legend but a Fact." The hunter, M A Wetherall, a member of the Royal Geographical Society and the London Zoological Society said: “It is a four fingered beast and it has feet or pads of eight inches across. I judge it to be a powerful soft footed animal about 20 feet in length....... I am sure that it can breathe like a crocodile( 鳄鱼 ) with just one nostril( 鼻孔 ) out of the water."

Loch Ness Monster

In China, we have Lake Tianchi Monster.

Pyramids in Egypt

The SphinxHalf human, half lion, the Sphinx is 240 feet long and 66 feet high

Pyramids , Egypt

How Tall

At 146.5 m (481 ft) high, the Great Pyramid stood as the tallest structure in the world for more than 4,000 years. Today it stands at 137 m (449.5 ft) high, having lost 9.5 m (31 ft) from the top.

                                                                              

Stonehenge   prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain, southern England, consisting of two concentric circles of large standing stones. It was built between 2800 and 1500 BC and is thought to have been an astronomical calendar or a temple to the sun.

• Do you think such kind of things mysterious ? • Are you curious about them? Besides UFOs, can you list anything more unexplained you’ve ever heard or seen in your daily life?

If you saw a UFO or an alien some day, what would you do?

UFO

E.T.

Famous film: ET

mystery 神秘 , 神秘的事物 , 谜

他是怎样进去的是一个谜。How he got in is a mystery.谁把书拿走了？这是个谜。Who has taken the book? It is a mystery.世界上有太多解不开的谜 .There are too many unexplained mysteries in the world.

advanced (adj.) 高级的 , 年老的 , 先进的

advanced teaching methods.先进的教学方法a person of advanced age.年迈的人the advanced education高等教育advanced mathematics高等数学advanced studies高深的研究advanced ideas先进的思想

run into 跑进 , 撞上 , 偶遇 , 陷入 , 达到

昨天我在街上碰见十年未见的老朋友了 .

I ran into an old friend yesterday in the street, whom I hadn’t seen for 10 years.那天他撞到另外一辆车的车尾了 .He ran into the back of another car the other day.

Translate the following phrases:

1.充满神秘

2. 先进的科学与技术

3. 一艘沉船

4. 相信未解之谜

5. 偶遇一个飞碟

be full of mysteries

advanced science and technology

a sunken ship

believe in unexplained things

run into a UFO

Surf the net and learn more about world mysteries. Prepare a short speech to introduce something that interests you. Preview the reading passage on page 2.