Unit 8 Mysteries
PART II LISTENING AND SPEAKING LESSON A Scary Monsters LISTENING
Script
Reinhold Messner is a famous mountain climber from Austria. He was the first person to climb the highest 14 mountains on Earth. For years, Messner heard stories about the Yeti, but he didn’t believe them. Then he had a scary experience.
He was alone on a hike in the Himalayas. It was early evening. Suddenly, he heard a strange sound and he saw something—maybe an animal. It moved very fast.
He walked more, and then he heard the strange sound again. Nearby, he saw ... something. It walked on two legs, like a person. It had short legs, but at the same time, it was over two meters tall. It also had very long arms. And it had hair on all of its body.
Messner looked at this half person, half animal. And it looked at him. And then the thing walked away—very quickly into the mountains. And it was gone.
Today, there are no apes in the Himalayas, but in the past, there were. Around three hundred thousand years ago, a type of giant ape lived in the Himalayas.
It was three meters (ten feet) tall and weighed more than five hundred kilograms (one thousand pounds). Some scientists think it walked on two legs, like humans.
Maybe the Yeti and this ancient (very old) animal are similar.
1. stories about 关于……的故事 2. be on a hike 徒步旅行
3. walk on two legs 两条腿走路 4. be gone 消失
CONVERSATION
Script
A: Do you think Yetis are real? B: Maybe. A: Really?
B: Yeah. Maybe they’re a kind of ape. How about you? Do you believe in them? A: No. There’s no proof these things are real.
1. no proof 没有证据
1
LESSON B THE WOW! SIGNAL Listening 1
Script
The Wow! Signal: Did aliens try to contact us?
Jerry Ehman was a scientist. In 1977, he worked at Ohio State University in the U.S. At the school, there was a large radio telescope called “Big Ear.” It listened for signals from space, and it made a report each day.
Ehman read the report every day. Each time, the sky was quiet. Then, on August 15, something interesting happened.
At 10:16 p.m., Big Ear got a very powerful signal from space. How powerful? Think of it this way: imagine listening to soft music on the radio, and then suddenly it becomes very loud. The signal was unusual because it was very “loud.” Also, it lasted for almost a minute and a half. Ehman was very surprised. On the report, he wrote the word “Wow!”
The signal came from outside our solar system, say scientists. Where exactly? We don’t know. Was it a message from another planet? Maybe, but even now, scientists are not sure. We only got the signal one time. Scientists continue to study the skies, but for now, the Wow! signal is still a mystery.
1. last for 持续了……时间
Listening 2
Script
On a summer’s night in July of nineteen forty-seven, something strange happened in the town of Roswell, New Mexico. People saw objects flying in the sky and then they heard a loud crash.
Near Roswell, the army found pieces of a flying machine on the ground, but it wasn’t a plane. A few days later, the army made a surprising announcement: They said the machine was a UFO—maybe one from space.
But then, a few hours later, the army made another announcement: They said their first message wasn’t correct. The object wasn’t a UFO from another planet. It was a weather balloon.
Today, the army still says the object was a weather balloon. But some people say they saw strange bodies near the crash site in 1947. They were dead, but they weren’t human. And now, a man named Chase Brandon says the army’s story is not true. Brandon worked for the government for many years. In 2012, he talked about Roswell. He said the flying machine that crashed wasn’t from Earth. He also said there were aliens. The events at Roswell definitely happened, says Brandon, but the government doesn’t want people to know about it.
1. Roswell 罗斯威尔市(新墨西哥州东南部城市)
2
LISTENING SKILLS （无注解）
Script
1. Nowadays more and more people keep animals like dogs and cats as pets. 2. Some people would be interested in a dog care center.
3. An average day at Dog Ma costs a dog owner about 25 dollars. 4. This is a big help for those dog owners who do not drive.
5. Dogs are friendly but they need to be fed and taken out for a walk every day. 6. Grandma wants to find out what happened to her dog’s treats.
PART III VIDEO WHAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS?
Script Narrator:
A giant asteroid—15 kilometers wide—is moving toward Earth very fast.
Over 65 million years ago, this asteroid crashed into the Earth near Chicxulub, Mexico. It made a very large crater.
The asteroid caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, scientists think. It also caused almost seventy percent of all life on Earth to die out.
It changed our planet forever. But how did this happen?
Was it the debris from the crash? Or the heat from the explosion? Or was it something else? To answer this question, scientists want to recreate the crash from 65 million years ago. In the United States, a team of scientists puts a bomb in the ground. The team moves to a safe place. And they wait… Scientists:
“Standby for count … 5, 4, 3, 2, 1”
“Oh man, awesome. Oh, beautiful ejecta falling—Ooh, that’s a crater. Good job, guys— outstanding.” Narrator:
Now, scientists can study the explosion. They watch high speed cameras. And they learn a lot.
What do the scientists see?
One of the first things is the large white circle. This is a shockwave, and it is moving very fast.
It’s a very powerful wall of air. And it can kill almost anything.
65 million years ago, as the wave moved, it probably killed anything within 150 kilometers in the first 10 seconds.
Now, scientists go and look at the crater. The crater is big, but the real crater in Mexico is much larger. It’s 180 kilometers wide!
In this experiment, debris from the explosion rains down for more than 10 seconds. 65 million years ago, a huge amount of debris went into the air. Some of the pieces of debris were the size of buildings.
The power of the asteroid is hard to imagine. But now, scientists understand it a little better.
3
1. crash into 撞击；与……相撞 2. die out 绝种；灭亡
3. high speed cameras 高速摄像机
4
全新版大学进阶英语视听说教程第1册--Unit8听力文本
