clamped牛津高中英语模块Readingproject课文

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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 . 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

. Justin 's sister, Kelly, aged nine, says she heard her brother

return home at about 11 .

‘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

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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’re 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 world

—

about the size of the US! I expect it will be very

hot, dry and dusty there. We’ll be travelling

by camel with local guides,

camping in tents and sleeping on the ground. I’ve heard that, 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 that I’ll be able to see

in the dark.

Altogether, the trip will take six days. That means I’ll have to sit on a camel for

almost a week

—

how uncomfortable! I hope my camel likes me!

After the trip by camel, we’re going to travel down the River Nile. We’ll

start at Lake Victoria. A little way down the river from Lake Victoria, the water

gets quite rough. So, we’ll go white

-

water rafting. It’s quite dangerous, but very

exciting! You have to wear a helmet and a life jacket for protection, just in case

you fall into the water.

Then, we’re going on a trip to see wild animals in Kenya. We’ll live with

the local people in their villages, and eat and drink whatever they do, including

cow’s blood! Do you think I should drink it?

Since we’ll be walking for almost two weeks, I’ll need to buy a

large

backpack in advance to carry my supplies of food and water. During the day,

we’ll walk across the land, following the tracks of wildlife such as elephants,

lions and giraffes. We’ll try to get as close as possible to the animals, even

though they’re

dangerous, so that we can take some really good photographs.

But don’t worry about me. Our guides will have guns with them for

defiance

—

they can use the guns to scare the animals away if they come too

near. I really want to see an elephant up close, and Colin wants to see a giraffe.

After that, we’ll be moving on to Tanzania, where we’re going to climb

Mount Kilimanjaro. Mountain climbing can be very tiring, and many people

feel sick as the atmosphere gets thinner, so Colin and I will make sure that we

will get plenty of rest. The African part of our trip will take about four weeks.

Afterwards, we’re going to the Himalayas.

I’ll send you postcards from all the different places we visit!

Love

Toby

10. M2U2. Project

—

Shangri-la

Would you like the chance to discover a place of mystery and beauty in the

south-

west of China? If your answer is ‘yes’, consider a trip to Shangri

-la !

How to get there

Start in the city of Dali and drive north along the Yunnan-Tibet Highway

until you reach Zhongdian (Shangri-la), the capital of Diqing. Zhongdian is 659