They called the newsroom at The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington and usually began the conversation with "Listen, I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I'm a good Christian and I don't lie. . ."

Then they'd go on to describe lights they saw in the sky. Some described objects that were triangular in shape and didn't move like an airplane. They would hover, sometimes for minutes, and then they'd take off at speeds no known aircraft could achieve.

They were UFOs.

And that was the topic of a conference last week at which panelists from seven countries, including former pilots and government officials, called on the U.S. government to re-open an investigation into UFOs in light of continuing reports about flying disks, glowing spheres and other strange sightings.

Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich was the butt of jokes recently when he said he had seen a UFO. That's perhaps one reason why not too many people admit it when they see something unexplained in the sky.

They forget that former President Ronald Reagan and former President Jimmy Carter are among those who have admitted they have seen unexplained objects in the sky. And former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington was among hundreds who saw huge lights cross the sky near Phoenix in 1997.

Let's face it. Most of these UFOs can be explained. But as one of the panelists at the conference said, about 5 percent of them can't be explained.

"Especially after the attacks on 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns . . . which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters," the panelists said in a statement released at a news conference.

"It's a question of who you are going to believe: your lying eyes or the government," said John Callahan, a former Federal Aviation Administration investigator who said that in 1987, the CIA tried to hush up the sighting of a huge lighted ball the size of a jumbo jet in Alaska.

I've never seen a UFO, but that doesn't stop me from believing the government needs to re-invigorate its investigations into what normal, right-thinking people see every day in the skies around the world. To simply ridicule those who see these strange lights and craft does nothing but increase the public's angst level.

For the sake of all those people in Point Pleasant and vicinity who saw that rash of strange lights in the sky 40 years ago, and for the sake of everyone else who has seen a UFO, it's time for the government to either come clean or look into what has become an almost common phenomenon.

Peyton may be reached by e-mail at davepeyton@davepeyton.com.