UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT 

Introduction 

What is the full form  of UFO?

Discuss in pairs the following.

Do you think life exists on other planets?

Is it possible for us to find out?

Why/Why not?

Would you like to meet someone from another planet?

What do you think this person from another planet will look like? Draw a picture of it.

In this lesson you will be reading an article about unidentified flying objects. 

Millions of people through the centuries have claimed to have seen objects in the sky. Thousands have taken the trouble to record it and submit their reports to scientists, agencies investing UFOs, various ministries, astronomers, and even the police. Many of these were taken to be meteors, planets, balloons, gases, aircrafts, clouds and even mere figments of the imagination. But there has been a significant number of sightings that have gone beyond man’s explanation.

It is true that disc-shaped objects have been sighted by many honest and sober people. Photographs in black and white in colour have also been taken. People have observed the objects flying in various ways. They sometimes hovered, moved straight up and down, accelerated and manoeuvred at speeds far beyond any man-made aircraft.

These UFO sightings have caused people to remark that the earth is being visited, or has been visited, by intelligent beings from outer space. But scientists are very doubtful about it.

On the one hand astronomers say that advanced civilizations are likely to be there among the billions of galaxies in the universe. On the other hand however, such visitations, they feel are highly improbable.

This is because of two things. Firstly, we discovered the radio only a few decades ago. Even if human beings announced their existence on earth, our closest planetary neighbours would be able to get the message hundreds or thousands of light years later. Secondly, if at all they know of our existence and decide to visit us, it would take them another several thousand years to reach us and return home.

One of the main reasons why science is so doubtful about it is because whatever accounts we have received from people about the visitations have been very unimaginative. Scientists say that the descriptions are similar to our own human concept of spaceships and technology, whereas, UFOs should belong to a much more advanced technology. Moreover, even these extraterrestrial beings that have been sighted and described seem to be too much like humans on earth. Sagan, a scientist feels they should be totally different from us.

Whatever the truth about UFOs, to those who claim to have seen them, it seems indistinguishable from magic. As mentioned earlier there have been thousands of sightings. Two are given below.

This incident took place outside Caracas in Venezuela in November 28^th, 1954.

Two truck drivers, Gustav Gonzalez and Jose Ponce were driving at 2o’clock in the morning when suddenly their truck was blocked by a shining sphere, about 9 feet in diameter and hovering some 6 feet above the roadway.  Gonzalez got down to investigate when he was attacked by a hairy dwarf with glowing eyes. Surprisingly, when Gonzalez struggled with the creature he found it was very light but remarkably strong and threw him some 15 feet away. Gonzalez then plunged forward and stabbed it but the knife slipped off the body which seemed to be made of steel. Another similar creature came from behind and blinded Gonzalez with a dazzling tube.

Two more were seen by Ponce colleting soil and dirt and then jumping lightly into the object through a small opening at the side. Nervous in seeing all this, Ponce ran to the nearest railway station and he was somewhere in the middle of the story, Gonzalez arrived, thoroughly exhausted and frightened. Gonzalez had a deep long scar on his side.

The two were kept in hospital under heavy sedation. One of the doctors treating them also confirmed that he saw the fight while driving home from a night call.

In Kansas, U.S.A. Ronald Johnson, a sixteen-year-old was tending sheep with his dog on the evening of November 2^nd, 1971. He suddenly saw a mushroom shaped object,, with multi coloured lights covering its surface. The UFO was about 25 yards away and hovering 2 feet above the ground. It sounded like a vibrating water pump. It soon took off issuing light from its base that temporarily blinded Ronald. As soon as he regained his sight he rushed into his house to call his parents. They rushed out in time to see the object high up in the sky before it vanished.

At the site where the UFO had landed there was a glowing ring and the surrounding trees were luminescent. In December when the snow fell, it soon melted everywhere except where the ring was. They found that the ground beneath was dry to at least a foot below and that water could not soak through.

For about two weeks after the incident, every evening the sheep would try to jump out of their pen and the dog would desperately try to get indoors. Ronald himself suffered eye irritation, headache and nightmares from which he would wake up screaming.

For Solved Exercises of this lesson, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJTgYmbQGweWg7n1IMh3PCA/join