During a visit to her home in Washington state, Kucinich said he saw a UFO and heard messages from it.

"Dennis found his encounter extremely moving," MacLaine writes. "The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him.

"It hovered, soundless, for 10 minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn't comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

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The truth is out there, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had no trouble offering his version of it when asked Tuesday night about his UFO sighting.

"It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It's, like, it's unidentified," Kucinich said during one of the few highlights at the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. "I saw something."

Kucinich, whose UFO run-in came to light last week in a passage from Shirley MacLaine's new book, went on to joke that he planned to move his campaign office to Roswell, N.M. Roswell is the place where legend holds a spacecraft crash-landed in 1947 and was recovered and moved for investigation to nearby Area 51, a secretive U.S. government airbase in Nevada.

Kucinich went on to defend himself, saying many Americans have shared his experience.

"You have to keep in mind that more — that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO and also that more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush's presidency," Kucinich said.

Debate moderator Tim Russert then cited a poll saying that 14 percent of Americans claim to have seen a UFO, to which Kucinich asked: "What as that percentage?"

"Fourteen," Russert answered.

"Thank you," Kucinich responded with satisfaction.

President Bush's approval rating stood at 35 percent in the most recent FOX News-Opinion Dynamics poll, but only 12 percent of Democrats gave him a thumbs up.

Earlier Tuesday, Kucinich questioned the president's mental state in lieu of comments made about a nuclear Iran sparking World War III.

"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."

According to MacLaine, Kucinich saw the UFO in the 1980s while visiting the actress at her home in Washington state.

"He saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent and observing him," MacLaine wrote. "It hovered for about 10 minutes or so and sped away with a speed he couldn't comprehend. He felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind."

Moving on in the debate questioning, Russert asked Sen. Barack Obama about his belief in the existence of life beyond Earth.

"I don't presume to know. What I know is there is life here on Earth, and — and that we're not attending to life here on Earth," Obama said.