Oct. 17 (UPI) — A Miami politician running for Congress is being scrutinized for a TV interview several years ago where she said she was visited by aliens from outer space when she was a child.
Republican Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, the vice mayor of Doral, a Miami suburb, is running to succeed Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who announced her retirement in August. But videos of an interview she gave to a Spanish-language television program in 2009 could complicate her efforts to win the crowded and competitive race.
In the video interview with Spanish-language television station America TeVe, Rodriguez Aguilera described being abducted 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,” she said, according to the Miami Herald.
Rodriguez Aguilera, whose daughter, Bettina Inclán Agen, is a former director of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee and married to Jarrod Agen, the deputy chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, said the aliens were tall, blonde and friendly — they even reminded her of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
She also said the aliens gave her deep insight, including that the world’s “energy center” is in Africa and that “God is a universal energy, not a person.”
“He’s part of everything,” she said in one of the videos, according to Fox News. “God talks to people and they interpret what he says different. In reality, there aren’t different religions. There is just one.”
In a statement, Rodriguez Aguilera said she’s in good company when it comes to believing in extraterrestrials.
“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.”
But Youtube user DoralGirl26, who posted one of the videos back in 2011 when Rodriguez Aguilera ran for city council in Doral, questioned the veracity of the aspiring congresswoman’s claims.
“If aliens are really talking to her and giving her the wisdom of the ages, what the heck is she doing running for Doral City Council? Shouldn’t she be president or head of the UN?” DoralGirl26 wrote.
