According to The Telegraph, at the end of a two-hour debate for Democrat candidates, with the presenters switching to light-hearted mode, the Ohio congressman was reminded of a passage in a book published recently by his friend Shirley MacLaine.

The actress, who is godmother to Kucinich’s daughter, writes that he saw the object near her home in Washington state and “found the encounter extremely moving”, seeing “a triangular craft silent and hovering, that you felt a connection to your heart and heard direction in your mind”.

“Now,” Mr Kucininch was asked, “did you see a UFO?”‘

“I did,” he replied, before stressing that it was unidentified and reminding the audience - correctly - that former president Jimmy Carter also saw a UFO.

Kucinich, a Left-winger, said afterwards: “It was more than 25 years ago, I don’t want to go into details right now because that is not why I am running for president, but I can affirm that I did see something and it was a UFO. But so have a lot of other Americans.

“Shirley is a dear friend of mine, but if I was writing a book I might give a slightly different account.” (ANI)