Businessman who made his fortune in the US motel industry says he was visited by aliens and insists we don't need to travel through space to find other intelligent life
A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE is convinced that aliens are living on Earth and are hiding "right under our nose".
Businessman Robert Bigelow said family members had been visited by aliens and that he felt a "strong extra-terrestrial presence" on our planet.
The entrepreneur made his riches from the US motel industry before turning to space engineering.
He has worked with Nasa to design and launch inflatable space station pods used by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).
While his cash might depend on space exploration, he has appeared on telly to make shocking claims that the search for intelligent life might be in vain.
That's because he believes aliens have already visited Earth - and that he has experienced his own encounter of the third kind.
Speaking in an interview with US TV show "60 Minutes", Bigelow said. "I believe in aliens. I'm absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it.
"There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence.
"And I spent millions and millions... I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject."
When quizzed on whether he worried people thought he had gone mad, he simply replied, "I don't give a damn".
Bigelow even took presenter Lara Logan to a spot in the Nevada desert to show where his grandparents allegedly witnessed a "UFO incident".
He said: "It really sped up and came right into their face and filled the entire windshield of the car.
"Then it took off at a right angle and shot into the distance."
Bigelow's long-term rental apartments continue to fund his aerospace venture, which has an alien-shaped logo.
One of his inflatable modules, known as the BEAM, was sent up to the ISS last year.
But he's hoping to launch his own lunar depot which would home astronauts similarly to the station, dubbed the B330.
Bigelow's claims are unlikely to put a dampener on stargazers searching for ET, however.
A group of Brits are set to take part in an international quest to find evidence of intelligent alien life beyond Earth and have been handed £77million to get cracking.
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