Republican congressional candidate Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, 59, admitted openly on an Américan Tevé program in 2009 to having been visited by three large, blond, extraterrestrial beings when she was seven years old. The beings, two females and one male, physically took her aboard their spaceship, she said.

“I went in," said Rodriguez Aguilera. "There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes."

The politician claimed to also receive periodic telepathic communications from the otherworldly entities.

She said she had received messages detailing how there are 30,000 skulls "different from humans" in a cave on the Mediterranean island of Malta; that Africa is the world's "energy center"; Florida's tourist attraction the Coral Castle, built from limestone, is an ancient Egyptian pyramid; and that "God is a universal energy."

When asked for a statement by the Miami Herald in mid-October of this year, Rodriguez Aguilera responded by emphasizing her religious beliefs and comparing her experience to UFO sighting claims made by former U.S. presidents.

“For years people, including Presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone,” she said. “I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.”

Rodriguez Aguilera is running to replace retiring Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, although she has raised only $10,000 since declaring her campaign in late August.