re: If we can communicate with them
Wouldn't it be nice if we actually found another form of intelligence that could teach US and that they had found others that had taught them? That perhaps intelligence DOES exist elsewhere? Now that would be fascinating!
I just came across Dr. Nikolai Kozyrev's works (Russian astrophysicist 1908-1983) and have found someone close by who can demonstrate some of his theories. Our language and communication skills advance along with the times. When we combine that with our fast moving technologies, we just must find the aetherscope or some such device which takes us into an unknown world, never seen or recorded before, but has always been around us.
Here's the article I read if you're <interested.>