They're admittedly not the usual collection of people you often hear on late night radio discussing such things. An international panel made up of two dozen pilots and government officials came to Washington on Monday with a request that rarely echoes through the hallowed halls of government: start looking into UFO sightings.

The group is demanding the government open up a new investigation into the cylindrical orbs, round discs, glowing spheres and other odd objects seen by many that remain unexplained. The panelists come from seven different countries and include former military pilots who admit they've seen some strange things in the sky during their flying careers. Just about all of them say they've witnessed a UFO or conducted investigations into the sightings.

That doesn't mean they believe they're extra terrestrials or aliens - just crafts that need to be explained. "Especially after the attacks of 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns ... which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters," a statement reads.

Most of the sightings can be accounted for if someone would simply look into them. Many are attributed to satellites, meteors or misidentified aircraft. But one panelist with the British Defence Ministry notes that still leaves five per cent of the reports with no explanation - and those are the ones that should be probed.

"It would certainly, I think, take a lot of angst out of this issue," agrees former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, who claims to have seen a delta-shaped craft with enormous lights float silently over Phoenix in 1997.

"It's a question of who are you going to believe: your lying eyes or the government?" asks former U.S. Federal Aviation Administration investigator John Callahan, who charges the CIA tried to cover up the sighting of a huge lighted ball four times the size of a jumbo jet in Alaska back in 1987.

The U.S. Air Force reportedly investigated more than 12,600 sightings in a period stretching from 1947 to 1969 and found there were no threats and no evidence of alien technology at work. But even with the heavyweights at work, it appears an official UFO probe won't be getting underway again anytime soon.

 "Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations," the Air Force concludes on its Web site.

Purported UFO sightings in Canada

Purported UFO sightings in Ontario

National UFO Reporting Centre

Note: none of the claims contained in the linked sites has been verified. Viewer judgment is advised.