研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译9

Unit 9
1 In popular culture, the term UFO–or unidentified flying object–refers to a suspected alien spacecraft, although its definition encompasses any unexplained aerial phenomena. UFO sightings have been reported throughout recorded history and in various parts of the world, raising questions about life on other planets and whether extraterrestrials have visited Earth. They became a major subject of interest–and the inspiration behind numerous films and books–following the development of rocketry after World War II.
通俗地说，所谓 UFO--或者不明飞行物--指疑似外星人的飞船，不过它的定义也包括无法解释的空中现象。

在全世界各地不同时期都有 UFO 目击的报告，引起人们关于外星生命以及地外生命是否访问过地球的争论。

在二战后火箭技术的发展下，它们成了人们感兴趣的一大主题--也是数不清的电影和书籍背后的灵感来源。

Flying Saucers
2 The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane. Arnold estimated the speed of the crescent-shaped objects as several thousand miles per hour and said they moved “like saucers skipping on water.” In the newspaper report that followed, it was mistakenly stated that the objects were saucer-shaped, hence the term flying saucer.
飞碟
首个著名的飞碟目击事件发生在 1947 年，一个叫 Kenneth Arnold 的商人声称他在华盛顿的雷尼尔山附近玩小型飞机模型时看到了一组9个高速移动的物体。

Arnold 估计这些月牙形的物体速度达每小时数千英里，还说他们的移动“就像是打水漂”。

在后来的新闻中错误地报道成了这些物体是碟形的，于是就有了飞碟这一称呼。

3 Sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena increased, and in 1948 the U.S. Air Force began an investigation of these reports called Project Sign. The initial opinion of those involved with the project was that the UFOs were most likely sophisticated Soviet aircraft, although some researchers suggested that they might be spacecraft from other worlds, the so-called extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). Within a year, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge, which in 1952 was itself replaced by the longest-lived of the official inquiries into UFOs, Project Blue Book, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. From 1952 to 1969 Project Blue Book compiled reports of more than 12,000 sightings or events, each of which was ultimately classified as (1) “identified” with a known astronomical, atmospheric, or artificial (human-caused) phenomenon or (2) “unidentified.” The latter category,
approximately 6 percent of the total, included cases for which there was insufficient information to make an identification with a known phenomenon.
之后不明的空中现象频发，在1948 年美国空军开始对这些报告进行调查，称为Sign计划。

这一计划的最初动机是怀疑这些 UFO 很可能是苏联尖端飞行器，虽然有些研究员认为它们可能是来自其他世界的飞船，也就是所谓的外星人假说（ETH）。

在一年内，Grudge 计划继承了Sign计划，到了1952 年它又被 UFO 官方研究计划中历时最长的 Blue Book计划取代，其总部位于俄亥俄州代顿市的Wright-Patterson 空军基地。

在 1952 年至1969 年间，Blue Book 编辑了一万两千多宗目击事件的报告，每一个最后都标上“已确认”或者“未确认”，“已确认”的包括已知的天文现象、大气现象和人造（人为引起的）现象。

后者约占总数的 6%，包括了一些信息不足，无法用已知的现象定性的事件。

The Robertson Panel and the Condon Report
4 An American obsession with the UFO phenomenon was under way. In the hot summer of 1952 a provocative series of radar and visual sightings occurred near National Airport in Washington, D.C. Although these events were attributed to temperature inversions in the air over the city, not everyone was convinced by this explanation. Meanwhile, the number of UFO reports had climbed to a record high. This led the Central Intelligence Agency to prompt the U.S. government to establish an expert panel of scientists to investigate the phenomena. The panel was headed by H.P. Robertson, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and included other physicists, an astronomer, and a rocket engineer. The Robertson Panel met for three days in 1953 and interviewed military officers and the head of Project Blue Book. They also reviewed films and photographs of UFOs. Their conclusions were that (1) 90 percent of the sightings could be easily attributed to astronomical and meteorologic phenomena (e.g., bright planets and stars, meteors, auroras, ion clouds) or to such earthly objects as aircraft, balloons, birds, and searchlights, (2) there was no obvious security threat, and (3) there was no evidence to support the ETH. Parts of the panel's report were kept classified until 1979, and this long period of secrecy helped fuel suspicions of a government
cover-up.
小组和 Condon 报告
而美国人已经开始对UFO现象着迷。

在 1952 年炎热的夏天，在华盛顿特区的国家机场附近发生了一系列令人激动的雷达和肉眼观测报告。

虽然这些报告被归结于城市上空空气的温度反转现象，并不是所有人都能接受这个解释。

同时，UFO 报告的数量攀升到历史最高。

这导致了中情局提请美国政府组建一支由科学家组成的专家小组对这一现象进行调查。

这个小组由加州帕萨迪纳市的加州理工学院物理学家 H.P. Robertson 领头，有数名物理学家、一名宇航员和一名火箭工程师。

Robertson小组在1953 年开了3天的会议，访问了Blue Book计划的负责人和军方官员。

他们也复查了 UFO 的胶片和照片。

他们得出结论：（1）
90% 的目击事件都可以简单归结为天文和气象现象（例如明亮的天体和星星、流星、极光、离子云）或者地球产物，例如飞机、气球、鸟类，和探照灯光；（2）不存在明显的安全威胁；（3）没有支持外星人假说的直接证据。

在1979年前这个小组的部分记录被分类存档，长时间的保密也给政府掩盖事实的说法起到了火上浇油的作用。

5 A second committee was set up in 196
6 at the request of the Air Force to review the most interesting material gathered by Project Blue Book. Two years later this committee, which made a detailed study of 59 UFO sightings, released its results as Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects—also known as the Condon Report, named for Edward U. Condon, the physicist who headed the investigation. The Condon Report was reviewed by a special committee of the National Academy of Sciences. A total of 3
7 scientists wrote chapters or parts of chapters for the report, which covered investigations of the 59 UFO sightings in detail. Like the Robertson Panel, the committee concluded that there was no evidence of anything other than commonplace phenomena in the reports and that UFOs did not warrant further investigation. This, together with a decline in sighting activity, led to the dismantling of Project Blue Book in 1969. 在 1966 年，由于空军想要复查 Blue Book计划中搜集的最有意思的材料而成立了第二支委员会。

两年后，这支队伍在对 59 宗 UFO 目击事件作了详细研究后发表了它的结论，《不明飞行物的科学研究》--也被称为Condon报告，这是以这次调查的领头人，一个叫Edward U. Condon 的物理学家命名的。

Condon 报告经过了美国国家科学院的一支特殊委员会的审查。

多达 37 名科学在在这份详细说明了59宗UFO目击报告调查的报告中写下了部分章节或段落。

和Robertson 小组一样，这个委员会得出结论说在这些报告中没有任何证据证明存在非正常的现象，继续调查 UFO 毫无意义。

这份报告随着目击事件的减少，导致了1969年Blue Book 计划的解散。

Other investigations of UFOs
6 Despite the failure of the ETH to make headway with the expert committees, a few scientists and engineers, most notably J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who had been involved with projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book, concluded that a small fraction of the most-reliable UFO reports gave definite indications for the presence of extraterrestrial visitors. Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), which continues to investigate the phenomenon. 其他 UFO 调查
虽然外星人假说在专家委员会那里未能有所进展，一些科学家和工程师，最著名的有埃文斯顿的西北大学的一位天文学家 J. Allen Hynek 和参与了 Sign、Grudge 和 Blue Book 计划的 Ill，认为一小部分较为可信的UFO报告给出了地外访问者存在的明显迹象。

Hynek成立了 UFO 研究中心（CUFOS），继续研究这些现象。

7 Aside from Project Blue Book, the only other official and fairly complete records of UFO sightings were kept in Canada, where they were transferred in 1968 from the Canadian Department of National Defense to the Canadian National Research Council. The Canadian records comprised about 750 sightings. Less-complete records have been maintained in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and Greece. In the United States, CUFOS and the Mutual UFO Network in Bellvue, Colo., continue to log sightings reported by the public.
除了 Blue Book 计划，唯一一个基本完整的官方 UFO 目击记录被保存在加拿大，它们在 1968 年从加拿大国土防御部转移到了加拿大国家研究理事会。

加拿大报告包含了750宗目击事件。

在英国、瑞典、丹麦、澳大利亚和希腊都存有不太完整的记录。

在美国，UFO研究中心和科罗拉多州Bellvue的共有UFO网络都在继续记录公众的目击记录。

8 In the Soviet Union, sightings of UFOs were often prompted by tests of secret military rockets. In order to obscure the true nature of the tests, the government sometimes encouraged the public's belief that these rockets might be extraterrestrial craft but eventually decided that the descriptions themselves might give away too much information. UFO sightings in China have been similarly provoked by military activity that is unknown to the public.
在苏联，UFO 目击常常被认为是秘密的军事火箭测试。

为了掩盖测试的真相，政府有时会鼓励民众相信那些火箭是地外飞行器，但最后他们认为即使这样描述所泄漏的情报也太多了。

在中国的 UFO 目击也被类似地认为是不公开的军事活动。

Possible explanations for UFO sightings and alien abductions
9 UFO reports have varied widely in reliability, as judged by the number of witnesses, whether the witnesses were independent of each other, the observing conditions (e.g., fog, haze, type of illumination), and the direction of sighting. Typically, witnesses who take the trouble to report a sighting consider the object to be of extraterrestrial origin or possibly a military craft but certainly under intelligent control. This inference is usually based on what is perceived as formation flying by sets of objects, unnatural—often sudden—motions, the lack of sound, changes in brightness or colour, and strange shapes.
对于 UFO 目击和外星人绑架事件的可能解释
根据目击者数量、目击者是否不受他人影响、观测状况（例如大雾、阴霾、照明类型）以及观测方向，UFO报告的可信度千差万别。

通常，不辞辛劳前来报告的目击者认为那些东西是来自地外的，或者可能是超越常识的军事飞机。

这些推论通常是建立在观察到的多个物体的飞行队列、不寻常——通常是瞬间——的运动、没有声音、亮度和色彩的变化，以及奇怪的形状之上的。

10 That the unaided eye plays tricks is well known. A bright light, such as the planet Venus, often appears to move. Astronomical objects can also be disconcerting to drivers, as they seem to “follow” the car. Visual impressions of distance and speed of UFOs are also highly unreliable because they are based on an assumed size and are often made against a blank sky with no background object (clouds, mountains, etc.) to set a maximum distance. Reflections from windows and eyeglasses produce superimposed views, and complex optical systems, such as camera lenses, can turn point sources of light into apparently saucer-shaped phenomena. Such optical illusions and the psychological desire to interpret images are known to account for many visual UFO reports, and at least some sightings are known to be hoaxes. Radar sightings, while in certain respects more reliable, fail to discriminate between artificial objects and meteor trails, ionized gas, rain, or thermal discontinuities in the atmosphere.
我们都知道裸眼会产生一些错觉。

一个明亮的光点，例如金星，常常看上去像在移动。

天文物体也会让司机神经兮兮，好像它们在“跟着”他们的车一样。

对于UFO的距离和速度的视觉印象也非常不可靠，因为他们是基于臆想的尺寸，而且常常是在别无一物的天空中出现，没有背景参照物（比如云、山之类）来确定一个最大距离。

窗户和眼镜片的反光会造成重叠的影像，而例如相机镜头这样精密的光学系统会将点状光源扩散为看似碟形的现象。

这样的光学幻觉和对图像解释的心理愿望被认为是许多 UFO 目击报告的原因，至少有的目击报告最后被发现纯属欺骗。

在某种程度上更为可靠的雷达观测无法区别大气中的人造飞船、流星轨迹、电离的空气、雨滴和热断层。

11 “Contact events,” such as abductions, are often associated with UFOs because they are ascribed to extraterrestrial visitors. However, the credibility of the ETH as an explanation for abductions is disputed by most psychologists who have investigated this phenomenon. They suggest that a common experience known as “sleep paralysis” may be the culprit, as this causes sleepers to experience a temporary immobility and a belief that they are being watched.
“接触事件”，例如绑架，经常和UFO关联起来，因为他们被归结为地外访客。

但是，外星人假说来解释绑架事件的可靠性在那些调查过这些现象的心理学家中存在争论。

他们认为一种叫作“睡眠性麻痹”的常见情况可能是元凶，它会让睡觉的人感到暂时性的束缚，认为他们被监视了。