本文选自《北外网院》的博客，点击查看博客原文

　　The Earth is a mysterious place. There is much going on around us every day that goes unexplained. For all our advanced technology and scientific understanding, there are ten perplexing events for which we have no answers。

　　地球是个神秘莫测的所在，周遭日常的许多事物至今仍然没有解释。我们有那么多先进技术和科学知识，却还是不能为以下十件让人困惑的事情找到答案：

　　10. The Body/Mind Connection 身心关联

　　Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo effect, for example, demonstrates that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective--whether they actually are or not. Using processes only poorly understood, the body's ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create。

　　对于心灵影响身体的各种方式，我们的医学只是刚刚有所了解。比如说，安慰剂效应表明人有时候能通过相信治疗有效来减轻症状和痛苦——不论治疗是否真的有效。我们的身体能通过一系列我们至今知之甚少的过程来自我疗救，其治愈能力远比现代医学所能创造的一切更加令人惊叹。

　　9. Psychic powers and ESP 灵力与超感知觉

　　Psychic powers and extra-sensory perception (ESP) rank among the top ten unexplained phenomena if for no other reason than that belief in them is so widespread. Many people believe that intuition  is a form of psychic power, a way of accessing arcane or special knowledge about the world or the future. Researchers have tested people who claim to have psychic powers, though the results under controlled scientific conditions have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is true, science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers。

　　对灵力和超感知觉(简称ESP)的信仰流布甚广，就凭这一点，这两样东西也应该进入十大未解之谜的行列。许多人相信，直觉就是灵力的一种表现形式、一种获取有关世界或未来的特异知识的方法。研究人员已经对一些自称拥有灵力的人进行了测试，但是迄今为止，他们在受控实验室条件下得到的都还是否定或含糊的结果。有些人辩称灵力不可测试，因为它会因怀疑论者或科学家的在场而莫名其妙地减弱。如果这是真的，科学就永远无法证明或驳斥灵力的存在。

　　8. Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death 濒死体验与死后生活

　　People who were once near death have sometimes reported various mystical experiences (such as going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, being reunited with loved ones, a sense of peace, etc。) that may suggest an existence beyond the grave. While such experiences are profound, no one has returned with proof or verifiable information from "beyond the grave." Skeptics suggest that the experiences are explainable as natural and predictable hallucinations of a traumatized brain, yet there is no way to know with certainty what causes near-death experiences, or if they truly are visions of "the other side."

　　曾经濒临死亡的人有时会宣称自己有各式各样的神奇体验(比如进入一条隧道、出现在光之中、与亲爱的人重聚、获得一种平静感，如此等等)，这样的体验也许暗示着人死后有知。但是，尽管这些体验让人刻骨铭心，但却没有人从“坟墓那边”带回过什么证据或是可资验证的信息。怀疑论者的看法是，濒死体验可以解释，但是是受损大脑可以预期的自然幻觉。然而，我们还是不能确切知道濒临体验的来由，也无法知道它们是否真的是“那边”的景象。

　　7. UFOs 不明飞行物

　　There is no doubt that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) exist - many people see things in the skies that they cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors. Whether or not any of those objects and lights are alien spacecraft is another matter entirely; given the fantastic distances and effort involved in just getting to Earth from across the universe, such a scenario seems unlikely. Still, while careful investigation has revealed known causes for most sighting reports, some UFO incidents will always remain unexplained。

　　UFO(不明飞行物)的存在是毫无疑问的，因为有许多人在天上看到过自己无法识别的东西，从飞行器到流行应有尽有。至于说这些物体和光影当中有没有外星人的宇宙飞船就完全是另外一回事了——但是想想穿越宇宙空间来到地球的遥远距离与巨大困难，你就会觉得这样的事情不太可能。但是，尽管大多数目击报告已经借由认真的调查得到了平平无奇的解释，有些不明飞行物事件还是会一直神秘下去。

　　6. Deja vu 幻觉记忆

　　Deja vu is a French phrase meaning 'already seen,' referring to the distinct, puzzling, and mysterious feeling of having experienced a specific set of circumstances before. A woman might walk into a building, for example, in a foreign country she'd never visited, and sense that the setting is eerily and intimately familiar. Some attribute deja vu to psychic experiences or unbidden glimpses of previous lives. As with intuition, research into ,human psychology can offer more naturalistic explanations, but ultimately the cause and nature of the phenomenon itself remains a mystery。

　　Deja vu(幻觉记忆)是一句法文短语，意为“似曾相识”，指的是一种令人不解的特殊神秘体验，就是你觉得自已以前经历过某个特定的场景。举例来说，一个女人可能会走进她初次拜访的异国的一座建筑，但却觉得眼前的景象似曾相识，感觉怪异又亲切。有些人认为幻觉记忆是通灵体验的产物，或是因为人在不经意间瞥见了前世的光景。跟直觉一样，人类心理学研究也可以为这种现象提供更为自然主义的解释，但这种现象本身的来由和性质始终还是个谜。