這裡我們列舉了最主要的7件事情,它們可能造就那些與空間UFO的惡作劇。
7. 閃電(Lightning)
Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand-in-hand with a natural weather phenomenon known as sprites — flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms. Sprites suddenly appear when lightning from thunderstorms excites the electric field above the storm, producing dancing flashes of bright light.
神秘的UFO情景可能會與被稱為精靈的自然氣象想像密切有關——由雷暴激發了大氣中的閃爍。當雷暴所引起的閃電激起了超過雷陣雨的電場時,精靈就會突然出現,並由此產生了強光的搖晃閃耀
Sprites can take the form of fast-paced balls of electricity, although they can also form streaks or tendrils. "Winter sprites" are common in the northern hemisphere during winter months.
儘管精靈也可以形成條紋或捲鬚,精靈可以採取快節奏的電球的方式。 在北半球裡,“冬季的精靈”是經常有的。
6. 導彈試驗(Missile Tests)
In December 2009, a spectacular spiral light show appeared in the sky above northern Norway: A giant spiral, with a green-blue beam of light shooting from its center, lit up the sky in a raindrop-ripple effect pattern. It looked like a wormhole to another dimension, but it turned out that the lights were caused by a Russian missile that failed just after launch, according to Russia's defense ministry. The botched Bulava ballistic test missile spun out of control, thus creating the mysterious rotating spiral effect.
2009年12月,挪威北部的上空出現了壯觀的螺旋體燈光表現:一個巨大的螺旋體,從中心發射出藍綠色的光柱,以雨滴紋波的效果模式來點亮天空。
它看來像是空間中另一維空間的一個蟲洞,但根據俄羅斯國防部,結果證明這些光線是他們發射不久就失敗的導彈試驗所引起。布拉瓦彈道導彈的試驗給辦砸了,由此產生了神秘的旋轉螺旋體效應。
5. 怪異雲層的形成(Weird Cloud Formations)
Last October, footage of a giant halo in an overcast sky over Moscow surfaced on YouTube. The video had everything needed to ignite UFO rumors. It's grainy. At one point, a dark pointy object appears to bolt out of the ring. There's even a panicked-sounding Russian radio broadcast in the background.
今年10月份,莫斯科陰天上空的巨大光環的連續鏡頭浮現在視頻網站上。視頻具有可以用來謠傳UFO所需要的一切。它是有條有理的。在某一時刻,一個模糊、尖尖目標似乎要匆忙地離開了這個環狀物。在視頻的背景上,甚至還有個驚慌音響的俄羅斯廣播電台。
Cool-headed meteorologists were quick to put the story to bed: It was just an optical illusion, the cause of sunlight hitting a cloud disturbed by wind or plane traffic in just the right way. Most likely it was what is known as a hole-punch cloud. These occur in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds, which are often composed of ice crystals and super-cooled water droplets – water that is below freezing temperature, but still in liquid form. The physical properties that hold these clouds together are delicate, and when disturbed – by a jet plane, wind or even cloud seeding efforts – the droplets can freeze instantly or evaporate, the latter of which will form the hole.
頭腦冷靜的氣象學家很快把這件事擱置起來:認為它只是一種光的幻覺,起因於陽光擊中了一朵雲彩,剛好能以一種合適的方式被風或飛機交通而使人感到不安。最有可能的是所謂沖孔雲。這些雲層發生在卷雲或卷層雲,它們通常包含著冰晶和過冷的水滴——溫度低於凍結溫度卻依然能保持著其液體的狀態。把雲層聚合在一起的物理性質是很微妙的,當它們受到擾動的時候——噴氣式飛機、風,甚至是雲種散播效應——水滴就可能會立即凍結或蒸發,如果是後者就會形成洞眼。
4. 輕氣球(Balloons)
Unlike Balloon Boy, not all balloon-driven hoaxes are intentional. In the afternoon of Oct. 13, hundreds of people in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood saw a cluster of silvery, shiny lights glittering from above. Naturally, initial descriptions of the supposed UFO varied wildly: Some folks reported seeing one large, slow-moving object full of lights, while others say they saw nearly a half-dozen entities
不像是氣球男孩,並不是所有由氣球驅動的惡作劇都是故意人為的。2010年10月13日,曼哈頓的切爾西街坊的幾百個人看到了來自天空上面的一簇銀色、閃耀的光,從上向下地閃閃發光。自然地,想像上UFO原始描述的差異是很大的:有些人報告說,他們看到的是一個很大的、充滿光亮緩慢移動的物體,而其他有的人說,他們看到了差不多是近乎半打的實體。
The strange, shimmering lights turned out to be caused by 12 helium balloons that escaped from an engagement party held for a teacher at the Milestone School in Mount Vernon, Westchester County, about 15 miles awayThe balloons were inadvertently released at 1 p.m., and the first of the "UFO" sightings occurred around 1:30 p.m.
奇怪和閃耀的燈光,原來是離開曼哈頓約有15英里的威徹斯特縣芒特弗農的邁爾斯通中學給一個教師舉行一個訂婚派對上,所飄移出來的12個氦氣球。這些氣球並不是人們在下午一點鐘故意釋放的,而第一個看到的“UFO”大約是在下午1:30.
3. 金星(Venus)
The planet Venus often gets mistaken for a UFO. To viewers on Earth, the second planet from the sun appears as a bright light that hangs in the sunset sky, seeming to slowly hover in the twilight as it outshines every star except for the sun. Because Venus orbits the sun inside our own orbit, from our perspective it constantly darts out on the either side of the sun, which people often mistake for a moving UFO.
金星常常被誤認為是UFO。對於地球上的觀眾,金星是太陽系裡顯示明亮光線的第二個行星,它高高地懸掛在具有夕陽的天空中,似乎它是除了太陽以外緩慢地懸浮在暮色蒼茫中一枝獨秀。因為金星得運行軌道在外面地球的裡面,從我們的觀點來看,金星總是在太陽的任何一個方向上衝了出來,人們往往把它錯認為是一個移動的UFO。
左上為月亮,右邊小一點的是金星
2. 飛機(Airplanes)
Here's proof that anything funny-looking in the sky can cause an uproar. This past Monday, most of the U.S. woke up to reports that a mystery missile had launched off the coast of California. The sightings were spurred by video of a condensation trail, or contrail, streaking through clouds lit up by the rising sun. No one could conclusively say what it was at the time—officials at the Department of Defense reported no scheduled missile launches, NORAD and USNORTHCOM detected no foreign activity and the FAA hadn't cleared any commercial space launches in the area. After a thorough investigation, many experts now believethat the streak was a – wait for it – a run-of-the-mill jet aircraft contrail that happened to hang around longer than usual. Contrails appear most vivid around sunrise or sunset, and it's not uncommon that one showing up in an unexpected location will generate whispers of a UFO or experimental military aircraft.
可以證明,天空中任何有趣式樣都可以引起一片嘩然。在剛剛過去的星期一,大多數的美國人早晨醒來,就聽到報道,說是有一枚神秘的導彈在利福尼亞海岸發射升空。凝結尾跡的視頻鼓動了所看到的情景,使它透過上升太陽所照亮的雲層而加上了條紋。當時沒有人能最後地說,這是什麼?——國防部的官員報告沒有安排導彈發射,北美防空聯合司令部和美國北方司令部沒有檢測到國外的有關活動,(美國)聯邦航空局沒有明確在這個地區裡有什麼商業上的空間發射。在經過徹底調查以後,許多專家認為所看到的線條是——等著——是一個運行著的米爾噴氣飛機軌跡,它偶然發生,比平常有較長的流連時間。凝結尾在日落和日出時,會顯露得非常生動,這種情況並不少見,一個意外的位置上所顯露出來的現象將產生與UFO或實驗用軍事飛機相類似的低低聲音。
Lights in the sky, especially when viewed by pilots, can also cause a stir, but are almost always revealed to be running lights of other aircraft, or flares dropped by weather research craft.
天空裡的光,特別當被飛行員看到的,也可以引起騷動,但它幾乎總是被揭露為其他飛行器運行時的燈光,或者是氣候研究用飛行器所放下的照明彈。
1. 軍事試驗(Military Experiment)
The late 1940s and early 1950s were a great time for spotting UFOs and aliens in New Mexico, primarily because that's where the Air Force was conducting some of its top-secret research. One such program was known as Project Mogul and involved floating microphone-carrying balloons to high altitudes in an attempt to pick up the sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests. The Air Force has since confirmed that a 1947 crash of one of those balloons created the debris that birthed the Roswell UFO Incident
1940年代末和50年代初是新墨西哥州發現UFO和外星人的美好時光,主要是因為當時空軍正在進行著最為絕密的研究,稱為莫臥兒項目(Project Mogul ),它涉及到把攜帶著浮動麥克風的氣球上升到高空,企圖檢測到蘇聯試驗原子彈所發生的聲波。此後空軍證實,1947年這些氣球中的一個,因墜毀所造成的碎片,引起了當時的羅斯威爾UFO事件(Roswell UFO Incident)。
Another military experiment provided the bodies for that UFO. In the 1950s, Air Force scientists dropped several dozen anthropomorphic dummies from planes to test new high-altitude parachutes and determine whether the bodies would enter a dangerous spin as they fell. Results from these studies contributed to designs for the parachutes and pressurized suits that fighter jet pilots and early astronauts would wear. The Air Force was more than happy to allow Russian spies to think New Mexicans were a little kooky than to reveal the true military origin of the sightings.
另一個軍事試驗為UFO提供軀體。在上世紀的50年代,空軍科學家從飛機上放下了幾十個人體模型來測試新的高海拔降落傘,並用來確定當這些軀體掉下時,是否會進入危險的自旋狀態。研究的結果卻促成了降落傘和供戰鬥機飛行員和早期的宇航員的穿著的加壓服裝設計。空軍更樂意讓俄羅斯的間諜認為新墨西哥州人都有些古怪,而不是揭示所謂UFO事件的真實軍事來源。