With the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) releasing government documents on UFOs to the National Archives today, fourteen files, comprising over 4,000 pages, spanning the UFO sightings over a 15-year-period - from 1981 to 1996 - have been placed online!

Indicating as many as 800 sightings reported between 1993 and 1996, and 609 sightings in 1996 alone, the latest release of documents happens to be the fourth set of UFO files released by the MoD since May 2008.

Also among the official documents is a letter - written on 1 May 1985 by ex-Chief of Defence Staff, the late Lord Hill-Norton to Michael Heseltine, the then defense secretary - cautioning about the UFO sightings near an RAF base shared with the US Air Force in Suffolk!

However, MoD has stated that there had been no threat to the UK and never has it detected a "structured craft flying in UK airspace that has remained unidentified."

There has been rational explanations for most sightings - like the 'brightly illuminated oval object' moving over London in 1993 and 1994, was actually a Virgin airship advertising the launch of the Ford Mondeo; and the 31 March 1993 'bright objects' sighted from RAF Cosford, had resulted from the re-entry of Russia's Cosmos 2238 satellite into Earth's atmosphere!

The 'ufologists' also agree that 99% of the cases are that of aircraft lights, satellites, helium or weather balloons, and lasers, among others!