The US government has been in direct contact with various ET groups since the 1950s- perhaps sooner- detonating a nuclear weapon is apparently a common milestone in technological capability and grabs the attention of ETs who would otherwise have a 'hands off' approach but also do not want to see the planet Earth destroyed. The USG has found ancient structures and extremely technologies in Antarctica that are more than 1.5 BILLION years old. They've also discovered and are excavating a three mile wide ship frozen in the ice- we are far from alone and it won't be long now before we are meeting many of our star cousins including some that are virtually indistinguishable from ourselves.