尼斯湖水怪

顏丹

The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2， 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier relates an account of a local couple who claim to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” becomes a media phenomenon1， with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20，000 pound reward for capture of the beast.

1933年5月2日，尼斯湖水怪的現(xiàn)代傳說(shuō)誕生在當(dāng)?shù)匦侣勚??！兑蚋?nèi)斯快遞報(bào)》報(bào)道了當(dāng)?shù)匾粚?duì)夫婦的描述，他們聲稱看到了“一只巨大的動(dòng)物在水面上翻滾并下潛”。關(guān)于“水怪”的故事成為一種媒體現(xiàn)象，倫敦的報(bào)紙向蘇格蘭派出記者，一個(gè)馬戲團(tuán)提供了2萬(wàn)英鎊作為捕獲怪獸的豐厚報(bào)酬。

After the April 1933 sighting was reported in the newspaper on May 2， interest steadily grew， especially after another couple claimed to have seen the animal on land.

在1933年5月2日?qǐng)?bào)紙報(bào)道的4月目擊事件后，尤其是在另一對(duì)夫婦聲稱在陸地上看到了這只動(dòng)物之后，人們的興趣逐步增加。

Amateur2 investigators have kept an almost constant vigil3 for decades， and in the 1960s several British universities launched sonar expeditions4 to the lake. Nothing conclusive was found. But in each expedition the sonar operators detected some type of large， moving underwater objects. In 1975， another expedition combined sonar and underwater photography in Loch Ness. A photo appeared to show what vaguely resembled the giant flipper5 of an aquatic6 animal.

幾十年來(lái)，業(yè)余調(diào)查員幾乎一直在監(jiān)視，到了20世紀(jì)60年代，英國(guó)幾所大學(xué)開(kāi)始對(duì)該湖進(jìn)行聲納探測(cè)。沒(méi)有任何確定性的發(fā)現(xiàn)。但是在每一次探測(cè)中，聲納操作員都探測(cè)到一些大型的，移動(dòng)的水下物體。1975年，另一次探測(cè)將聲納和水下攝影結(jié)合。有一張照片似乎顯示出隱約與某種水生動(dòng)物的巨大鰭狀肢相似的東西。

Further sonar expeditions in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in more inconclusive readings. Revelations in 1994 that the famous 1934 photo was a complete hoax7 has only slightly dampened8 the enthusiasm of tourists and investigators for the legendary beast of Loch Ness.

80年代和90年代進(jìn)一步的聲納探測(cè)得到的是更多的不確定的結(jié)論。1994年曝光1934年的那張著名的照片完全是一個(gè)騙局，而這只是稍微打消了一點(diǎn)游客和調(diào)查人員對(duì)具有傳奇色彩的尼斯湖水怪的熱情。