In the summer of 1978 an English
man named Steven was driving his tractor through a field of wheat when he
discovered something strange. Some of his wheat was lying on the ground. The
flattened wheat formed(形成)a circle about six meters across
. Around this circle were four smaller circles of flattened wheat.
Three years later a farmer who lived nearby discovered almost
the same circles in one of his fields. These circles were larger—nearly 15 meters across . That same year , another English
farmer discovered three circles of flattened wheat on his land—one large circle between two small circles. During the
following years, farmers in England found circles in their fields more and more
often.
The circles are called “crop
circles” because they usually appear in fields of
wheat or corn. The wheat in the circles lies on the ground but is never broken;
it keeps on growing, and the farmers can later harvest it. Farmers always
discover the crop circles in the morning, so the circles probably form at night.
They appear only in the months from May to September. What causes the crop
circles?
At first, people thought that some kids were making them as a
joke, or that farmers were making them to attract tourists.(In fact, in 1991,
two men said they made the circles themselves, but many scientists don’t believe them.) People tried to copy them: They tried to make
circles exactly like the ones the farmers had found. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t enter a field of wheat without
leaving tracks, and they couldn’t flatten the wheat without
breaking it.
Several times people reported seeing stranger objects near the
fields where crop circles later appeared. Many people believe that these crop
circles are the messages sent by living things from outer space(外层空间)or the marks left by their spaceships.
Scientists who have studied the crop circles try to find out
what causes them. In the summer of 1990 some scientists spent three weeks in
the part of England where many circles have appeared. They had all the latest
high-tech equipment(最新高科技设备). The equipment—worth 1.8 million dollars—got
nothing. But one night, as the scientists were watching a field, crop circles
formed in the field behind them, which were quite different from the others.
The scientists had neither seen nor heard anything.
When Steven discovered the crop circles on his land in 1978, he
said, “It was just like something that had landed
in the field from the air and gone back up again. I don’t
know what to make of these things.”
Crop circles have appeared in England, Japan, the United States
and Russia. Experts from all over the world have studied them, and they say
what Steven said: They don’t know what to make of these
things.
1.Which picture is probably the one formed in
the field behind the scientists?
2.“Flattened
wheat” means ___________.
A. broken
wheat B.
lying wheat
C. harvested
wheat D. growing wheat
3.The passage is mainly about something
___________ .
A. that is done by living things
from outer space
B. that cannot be solved but
found all around the world
C. that cannot be made clear or
understood
D.
that is discovered and copied by the farmers
