《牛津高中英语》模块2-Reading-project课文

7. M2U1. Reading—Boy missing, police puzzled

Police in America have stepped up their search for a fifteen-year-old boy who went missing three days ago in Dover, New Hampshire. This incident has received great interest due to reports of strange lights in the sky and of alien visits around the time the boy disappeared.

Justin Foster, a high school student, was last seen Friday night. That evening at 8 p.m. Justin went to play baseball with two friends, who both say Justin went home after the game. Witnesses also say they saw Justin walking towards his house at 10.45 p.m. Justin 's sister, Kelly, aged nine, says she heard her brother return home at about 11 p.m.

‘ I was getting ready for bed, ' Kelly said. 'Justin went straight to his room. I didn't see him, but I heard him put on his favorite CD. I went to bed, and was woken up around midnight by a bright light outside my window.'

At first, the young girl thought it was the light of the full moon,

but then she realized that it was moving and coming closer.

'I pulled back the curtains and saw a large spaceship flying outside. It had blue lights all around it, and there were many windows. Standing inside were lots of strange creatures with white skin and large black eyes.

I was frightened!'

Kelly said that the spaceship then moved around to the side of the house, towards her brother's bedroom.' There was a flash of light and I

heard Justin shout, and then the UFO just disappeared. I haven't seen Justin since. I'm sure the aliens took him.'

Kelly then ran and woke up her mother. However, since Mrs Foster thought that Justin was spending the night with a friend, she assumed that Kelly was having a bad dream, and sent her back to bed. Mrs Foster was working that night on his road construction job, and was not home when these events occurred. When Justin did not show up for lunch the next day, Mrs Foster became worried and told her husband to call the police.

Some people in Dover also say that they saw aliens that night. 'It's happened to me!' said Mrs Mavis Wood. 'The aliens took me aboard the UFO so that they could do research on me. Luckily, they returned me home without any injuries. The whole experience was terrible! I haven't been sleeping well since I returned home. I think Justin was taken away by them, too.'

When asked about the possibility that Justin was taken by aliens, Detective Sam Peterson, who has taken charge of the case, told journalists, ' Sometimes people make up such amazing stories. There's really no hard evidence that aliens took him. So, while we have not dismissed the idea, we are looking into other possibilities as well. We will not give up until we find out what happened.'

8.M2U1. Project—Yeti, Bigfoot and the Wild Man of Shennongjia

For centuries, people have reported seeing a wild creature in the Himalayas called Yeti. The Yeti is said to be a large, hairy animal that walks an two feet like a human being. People believe that Yetis sometimes come down from the mountains to attack villagers.

In 1998, an American mountain climber said that he saw a Yeti on the Chinese side of the Himalayas. 'It walked like a human, but it had thick black fur and was about six feet tall with huge shoulders, very long arms and large hands, 'he said.

In 2007, an American TV team saw Yeti tracks 33 centimetres in length in the snow near Mount Qomolangma. They made copies of these tracks and had them examined by a scientist in the USA. He reported that they looked like the tracks of a similar creature, called Bigfoot, which some people believe lives in the forests of the north-west of the USA.

Yeti and Bigfoot are similar to a creature known as the Wild Man of Shennongjia. There have been dozens of reports that people have seen a Wild Man in the Shennongjia Nature Reserve in western Hubei Province, China. In one case, a group of engineers ran after the creature, which moved with amazing speed and strength. Large tracks have also been discovered which some people say belong to the Wild Man. Because of these reports and the tracks, there have been several organized searches for this creature, but no strong evidence for existence has ever been

found.

Dr Grover Krantz, a scientist from Washington State University,

studied reports of such strange creatures for many years. He became

convinced they exist .He believed that these creatures are linked to a

common ancestor, an animal that lived in Asia some 300,000 years ago.

In his opinion, this animal made its way to other parts of the world, and

continues to survive even today.

Scientists hope that the mystery will be solved one day. If such

creatures really exist, we might have the chance to see one with our own

eyes.

9. M2U2. Reading— An adventure in Africa

30 June

Dear Aihua

How are you going ？Sorry I haven’t written for so long. I’ve been quite busy arranging my holiday with my older brother, Colin. Colin and

I plan to spend a few weeks travelling before he goes to university. We

going to visit so many exciting places and do lots of extraordinary things.

We will go to Africa first. I can’ t wait! Have you ever been there?

We leave London on 15 July, and we’ll be taking a flight to Morocco,

in northern Africa. We’ re going to ride camels through the Sahara Desert.

It ’ s the biggest desert in the worldabout the size—of the US! I expect it

will be very hot, dry and dusty there. We l be travelling’l by camel with

local guides, camping in tents and sleeping on the ground. I

’ ve he in the Sahara, there is no shade during the day, and the stars seem

especially brilliant on clear nights. I’ ll bring a flashlight with me so tha I ’bell able to see in the dark. Altogether, the trip will take six day …… 此处隐藏：12539字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……