Make Your Way 5, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

UFOs: Do they really exist? In exercise 8 you are going to read a text about a Government UFO expert called Nick Pope. Before you read the text, check your vocabulary. The words in column A below are all from the text. Find the word or expression with a similar meaning from column B. Draw lines. 7 Read the text. The first sentence of each paragraph has been removed. With a partner, see how quickly you can decide which sentence begins each paragraph. There is one sentence which you should not use. 8 A cautious terrestrial instantaneously witnesses startled zig-zagging sceptical humming noise B moving from side to side doubtful people who see something happen very surprised careful low sound made by a machine immediately from Planet Earth a March 31, 1993 was a very important day for Pope. b Since the informants all seemed to be in a state of shock, they were unable to give details about their observations. c From 1991 to 1994, Nick Pope had a responsible and fascinating job working for the British Government. d As time went on, however, Pope noticed an interesting change. e A group of five people saw one of the craft fly very low over their heads. f During this period of time, Pope investigated every single report of a UFO sighting. g These reports were then investigated in detail by Pope, but he could find no explanation for the sightings. 1 He ran a special department which was nicknamed “the UFO desk”. He was the Government’s top expert on UFOs, and had more information on them than possibly anyone else in Britain. 2 Each year he received around three hundred new cases, and he found that most of them were easy to explain. People had sometimes been tricked by certain weather and light conditions, for example. Pope was sceptical and cautious about these reports in the beginning, although he admits there were always around 10% of cases annually for which no “terrestrial” explanation could be found. 3 Increasing numbers of reports of UFO sightings were made by more “serious” witnesses, like RAF offi- cers and airline pilots. Pope believed they were not likely to invent these reports. He began to read all the UFO literature available, and meet all the top UFO researchers. 4 That morning he was telephoned by a police constable in Devon who described how he and his col- leagues had just seen three strange craft travelling across the sky at high speed. They were startled by the sight and could think of no explanation for it, so they felt it necessary to contact the Ministry of Defence. Pope was then called by many other witnesses, also describing three objects travelling at extremely high speed, then stopping in mid-air. The three craft seemed to be zig-zagging at tremendous speed across the country. The speed was calculated by one expert to be 1,100 mph, around the top speed of an F-16 jet fighter aircraft! 50 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv