IELTS в RBSM

A

In the mid-1990s, German author and tour guide Hartwig Hausdorf reignited the debate as to whether aliens had crash-landed in their craft in the remote mountainous region of Baian-Kara-Ula, in China’s Qinhai Province. Over the past decade or so, several elements of the story have been confirmed.

The alleged crash-landing at Baian-Kara-Ula has become known as “the Chinese Roswell”*—though the crash, if there was one, occurred not in 1947 or thereabouts but several thousand years ago.

*The Roswell UFO Incident was the alleged recovery of alien debris, including corpses, from an object which crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, on or about July 8, 1947. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and the subject of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object which crashed. The United States military maintains that what was actually recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to a classified program named "Mogul", however many UFO proponents maintain that in fact a crashed alien craft and bodies were recovered, and that the military then engaged in a cover-up.

To reignite (verb) – возобновлять

An alien  (noun) – инопланетянин

Remote  (adjective) – удаленный

To confirm (verb) – подтверждать

Alleged (adjective) – предполагаемый

Thereabouts  (adverb)– примерно

Debris (noun)– осколки

A corpse (noun) – труп

Intense (adjective) – усиленный

Controversy (adjective) – спорный

High-altitude (adjective) – высотный

A surveillance (noun) – наблюдение

A proponent (noun) – сторонники

To maintain (verb) – поддерживать

To engage (verb) - заниматься

B

At the core of the story is that in 1937–38, an expedition led by Chi Pu Tei, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Peking (Beijing), was trying to find shelter in the Kunlun-Kette mountain chain. The team members entered a cave and found inscriptions on the walls. At the back of the cave they found several tombs, aligned in a row, containing strange-looking skeletons, each measuring 1.0 metre 20 centimetres in length and having an abnormally large skull. Buried with the skeletons were unusual stone discs, 716 in all, about 30 cm wide and 1.0 cm deep with a hole in the centre, each bearing strange hieroglyphs. Were these Stone Age long-playing records?

The story goes that the Chinese Academy of Sciences tried to ban the publication of these findings, but eventually the story of the Dropa (or Dzopa) tribe and their stone discs was released—though never confirmed.

A core (________) –

A shelter (_______) –

An inscription (______) –

A tomb (_______) –

To align (______) –

Abnormally (___________) –

A skull (_______) –

To bury (_______) –

A hole (_______) –

To bear (_______) –

To ban (_______) –

Eventually (_________) –

A tribe (________)  -

To release (_______) -

C

There are several aspects to this story: the strange skeletons; the discovery of a little-known tribe of dwarf-like beings; the nature and whereabouts of the discs; and the decipherment of the inscriptions.

The script was apparently only deciphered and the passages translated in the early 1960s by a team led by Professor Tsum Um Nui of the Peking Academy of Prehistory. He claimed that they describe the crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft 12,000 years ago. Here are a few lines from the translation: “The Dropa came out of the clouds in their aeroplanes. Before sunrise, our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times. When they finally understood the sign language of the Dropa, they realised the newcomers had peaceful intentions...”

Dwarf-like (adjective) – похожий на карлика

Whereabouts (noun) – происхождение

A decipherment (noun) – дешифровка

Apparently (adverb) – несомненно

To claim (verb) – заявлять

Extraterrestrial (adjective) – внеземной

To hide (verb) – прятаться

An intention (noun) – намерение

D

As for the discs, it has been pointed out that stone discs are a known ingredient of Chinese culture and are called “Bi” discs. Although their origin is unknown, these Bi discs have been dated to as far back as 10,000 BCE—thus largely coinciding with the time-frame of the alleged crash.

Bi discs were normally made from jade or other precious materials and were regarded as status symbols. In the aftermath of war, the losers were required to hand over their discs as a sign of submission. Furthermore, it is known that the discs were used in burials. In aristocratic burials, the discs were normally placed above the head, below the feet and on the chest of the deceased. Interestingly, Bi discs were often considered to be “the Ear of Heaven”, and sometimes the hole in the disc was placed in front of the mouth so that the dead could speak to their ancestors.

To point out (_____) –

An ingredient (_____) –

An origin (_____) –

To coincide (_____) –

Alleged (_______) –

A jade (_____) –

To regard (_____) –

An aftermath (______) –

To require (______) –

A submission (______) –

Furthermore (_______) –

A chest (_____) –

A deceased (_____) –

An ancestor (_____) -

E

The story that stone discs with hieroglyphs were found in a tomb is therefore not only plausible but likely—considering, too, that Bi discs often carried inscriptions.

In 1974, a tourist, Austrian engineer Ernst Wegerer, saw and photographed several discs in the Banpo Museum in Xian, in Shensi Province. But this begs the question of whether these discs, which are similar in description to those reportedly discovered in Baian-Kara-Ula, were “just” Bi discs or actual examples of the ones found in the mountain cave during the 1937–38 expedition.

Therefore (adverb) – Поэтому/следовательно

Plausible (adjective) – правдоподобный

To beg (verb) – поднимать

Reportedly (adverb) – как сообщают

F

Descendants of the Dropa

Many people incorrectly believe that the story of the Dropa tribe was first aired in a 1978 book titled Sungods in Exile, edited by David Agamon. This book details the 1947 expedition of the English scientist Dr Karyl Robin-Evans, who supposedly reached the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains and made contact with the Dropa. According to the book, the tribe comprised several hundred members, all dwarfish in appearance and four feet (1.22 metres) tall on average. Dr Robin-Evans stayed there for half a year, learned the Dropa’s language and was introduced to the history and traditions of the dwarfish beings, who told him that their ancestors had come from Sirius, of all places.

It is now known that the book was largely science fiction dressed up as non-fiction, but many people had already decided that the Dropa story was bogus.

A descendant (____) –

To air (_____) –

An exile (_____) –

Supposedly (______) –

According to (_______) –

To comprise (_____) –

Dwarfish (______) –

On average (_____) –

A fiction (______) –

A bogus (______) -

G

It would seem that Sungods in Exile either was meant to cash in on stories about the Dropa that were in circulation for a few years before it was published, or—if you like a conspiratorial explanation—was meant to discredit the story. Why? Perhaps it was merely because China was a communist nation and any interest in Chinese things was officially discouraged at the time by western governments.

But it was definitely not a hoax—at least not one executed in 1978. The Berlin-based historian Dr Jörg Dendl has been able to trace the first mention of the Dropa story to 1962, when a monthly magazine for vegetarians, Das vegetarische Universum ( “The Vegetarian Universe”), published an article titled “UFOs in Prehistory?” in its July edition. Dr Dendl has so far not been able to find the original Chinese or Japanese source, but it is clear that the story is much older than 1978.

To be meant to  (verb, P.V.) – намереваться сделать что-то

Conspiratorial (adjective) – законспирированный

To discredit (verb) – дискредитировать

Merely (adverb) – просто

To discourage (verb) – не приветствоваться

Definitely (adverb) – определенно

A hoax (noun) – ложь

To trace (verb) – проследить

H

Furthermore, the story reported in Sungods in Exile of an expedition coming across dwarfish people in the Baian-Kara-Ula region has nonfictional counterparts. Dr Dendl found a 1933 clipping about a Chinese confrontation with dwarflike beings. Though some might argue that the location was in “Tibet”, at that time Baian-Kara-Ula was mistakenly labelled as being part of Tibet. The article relates how a woman, only 1 m 20 cm tall, was seen being escorted by Chinese soldiers and that she and her group were being held as slaves. There was also a statement that they were cannibals, but this might merely have been an excuse to cover for their inhumane treatment.

A counterpart (_____) –

A confrontation (_____) –

To label (_____) –

To escort (_____) –

A slave (_____) –

I

Most importantly, the existence of the Dropa—or a tribe like them—has been confirmed. In November 1995, the Associated Press (AP) stated that some 120 “dwarfish beings” had been discovered in Sichuan Province, in a so-called “Village of the Dwarfs”. (Some skeptics cast doubt on the AP account, though it is easily verifiable. In fact, on 9 November 1995, the German publication Bild ran a report titled “The Village of the Dwarfs – environmental pollution to blame?” about the discovery.) The tallest adult in this village was three foot 10 inches (1.0 m 15 cm) tall; the smallest was two foot one inch (63.5 cm).

The location of the village is only a few hundred kilometres from the Baian-Kara-Ula mountain range. However, despite China’s becoming more open, this entire area including the village remains off limits to foreigners.

An existence (noun) – существование

A skeptic (noun) – скептик

To cast (verb) – подвергать

A doubt (noun) – сомнение

Verifiable (adjective) – поддающийся проверке

Environmental (adjective) – окружающая среда (прилагательное)

A pollution (noun) – загрязнение

To blame (verb) – винить

To despite (verb) – несмотря на

To remain (verb) – оставаться

Off limits (noun) – вне зоны доступа

J

Hartwig Hausdorf, who has been on the track of the Dropa since at least the early 1990s, ponders whether in recent years the Dropa’s descendants might have abandoned the mountains and settled in the nearby lowlands— where they were “discovered” in 1995.

According to a report in Bild on 27 January 1997, a Chinese ethnologist claimed that the tribe’s dwarfism was due to a high concentration of mercury in the soil, which had poisoned their drinking water for several generations. The claim did not go unchallenged, however. Dr Norbert Felgenhauer of the Munich Institute for Toxicology argued that this theory is nonsense. He stated that such poisoning would result in immediate death, not stunted growth, and introduced as evidence the case of the Japanese town of Minamata, where in the 1960s many inhabitants died from mercury poisoning. He also noted that mercury was unable to change human DNA and hence could not be held responsible for causing an hereditary trait—one that was clearly apparent in this tribe.

A track (____) –

A ponder (_____) –

Recent (_____) –

A descendant (_____) –

To abandon (_____) –

To settle (_____) –

Nearby (_____) –

Mercury (_____)

Several (_____) –

A generation (______) –

To unchallenged (______) –

To stunt (_____) –

A growth (_____) –

An evidence (_____) –

An inhabitant (______) –

To unable (_____) –

DNA (_____) –

Hence (______) –

Responsible (_____) –

To cause (______) –

Hereditary (_______) –

Trait (_____) –

Apparent (______) –

confirmed

skull

tombs

row

reignited

skeleton

tribe

a shelter

mercury

alleged

decipherment

debate

stunt

deceased

hieroglyphs

extraterrestrial

“Bi”

buried

Exile

origin