Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, a Republican candidate for a congressional district in Florida (natch), has said she was once visited by extraterrestrial beings, McClatchy reported on Monday.
The outlet flagged a TV interview Aguilera gave in 2009 in which she recalled her unforgettable experience, which she said took place when she was 7.
She described “going up” inside the spaceship — though whether it went into space or just hovered around town was left unclear.
“I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes,” Rodriguez Aguilera said.
She claims that the aliens have communicated with her telepathically several times since then, implying that they enjoyed her company the first time around.
There are also multiple interviews posted on YouTube in which Rodriguez Aguilera ventures into more fine-grained detail about her adventure. According to McClatchy, she learned several fascinating factoids from the aliens, including that there are 30,000 non-human skulls in a cave on the island of Malta, and that the Coral Castle, a limestone structure and tourist destination in South Florida, is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid, which Ben Carson would probably be interested to know.
In a statement given to the Miami Herald, Rodriguez Aguilera smartly responded to the revelations about her past by pulling the Stephen Hawking card and avoiding the “I actually talked to aliens” part of her story.
“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, whose daughter-in-law is Mike Pence’s deputy chief of staff, is running in the crowded primary field to replace Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. At this point, whether her fantastical tales will hurt her among Republican voters or actually make her more popular is an open question.
