This UFOlogical treasure trove can be downloaded free of charge until 20 November, from a newly re-launched website designed to cater for massive interest from across the globe. When the first collection of files was made available in May, the event received blanket coverage in the national and international media. In the first few days 1.7 million downloads were made from the UFO page - double the traffic measured for the launch of the Domesday survey online two years earlier.

I have spent three months working with staff from The National Archives to prepare the new material and will be acting as their resident expert and spokesman over the next few weeks. I also recorded a special Video-Cam in which I give a brief introduction to the file contents.

Visitors to the UFO page (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos) can download both the Video-cam and a guide to help them navigate around the highlights from the files. These include everything from tales of alien abductions to accounts of near-misses between passenger jets and UFOs.

Key incidents covered in the papers include:

Near collision between an Italian airways jet and a missile-shaped UFO over Kent in April 1991

Accounts from two USAF fighter pilots who were scrambled to intercept UFOs over East Anglia in 1956 and 1957. One of these pilots, Milton Torres, describes how he was ordered by an RAF controller to fire a salvo of missiles at an object tracked both on ground and airborne radar. This unexplained incident is described in detail in my article ‘Intercept and Destroy’ published in the November 2008 edition of Fortean Times (FT 242).

A file on ‘alien abductions’ opened by the MoD desk officer Nick Pope in 1992 which includes the story told by Linda Taylor of her close encounter with a UFO on the East Lancs Road, near Manchester, in 1982.

Papers covering the MoD’s policy on crop circles, which included a missive asking Army and Navy helicopter crews to avoid visiting or taking photographs of the phenomena

Internal papers showing how the MoD went to great lengths to avoid revealing the involvement of the Defence Intelligence branch DI55 in UFO matters.

For full details of these and many other fascinating stories visit the TNA UFO site here: