UNIT stands for The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. It was a worldwide organisation set up to track and defeat any new and unusual menaces to mankind, especially those of an extraterrestrial nature.

The department was initially run by Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, set up after an army veteran of the attack on the London Underground by the Abominable Snowmen in the Web Of Fear.

UNIT started off in a mobile HQ within a Hercules Transporter Aeroplane, but soon moved to outer London offices which bordered a canal - there were various other locations where they settled as they had to deal with different situations at different times.

Amongst the menaces it fought were Cybermen, Nestenes, Silurians, Alien Ambassadors, the Master, Axons, Daemons, Daleks, Gell Guards, Giant Maggots, Dinosaurs, the Spiders of Metebelis III, Robot K1, Zygons, Kraals and Krynoids.

After the Brigadier's retirement, Colonel Crichton took over, but by the time Morgaine attacked, Brigadier Bambera was in command.