The Miami Herald is endorsing a congressional candidate who claims to have communicated with aliens throughout her life and says extraterrestrials once visited her.

The newspaper on Sunday endorsed Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who is running as a Republican for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (R-Fla.) seat in the Republican primary for Florida's 27th Congressional District. The newspaper called her "a strong candidate in the race with plausible conservative ideas."

Rodriguez Aguilera said in a 2009 television interview that she boarded a spaceship occupied by aliens when she was 7.

"I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship - not like airplanes," Rodriguez said in the interview. She said she was visited by three large, blonde beings.

In a separate interview with the Herald last year, she said she joins "the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe."

The newspaper's editorial board acknowledged in its endorsement that Rodriguez Aguilera "is an unusual candidate," but agreed with her assessment that her past comments about aliens aren't an issue in the race.

"Her bona fides as a former elected official, and now a businesswoman who spends time in other countries training women to run for office are solid," the editorial board wrote.