Given the current estimate that there are 1022 solar systems in the known universe (give several orders of magnitude), and given the expansive definition of "life" and "intelligence" of present-day biology, given Susan Blackmore's perfections on Drake's Formula, applying the anthropic principle to non-earth-life as we do to earth-life, and acknowledging the apparent possibilities of future technology--many of the brightest big-picture thinkers of our day consider it a virtual statistical certainty that we are not alone in the universe.
Given the widespread ancient belief that the heavens are the domain of the gods, what are the possibilities that the angels/demons, gods/devils of religious mythology are based on historic alien visitations in humankind's past? These extraterrestrials would, of course, have been natural beings; but would have appeared supernatural to our human ancestors; their langauges, like ours, incapable of expressing unfamiliar phenomena except in terms of the familiar, by metaphorics, the likes of which are preserved in the god-traditions which survive to this day. An alien species capable of interstellar travel would have appeared omniscient, omnipotent, immortal, irresistible, inscrutable, capricious... perhaps even benevolent.
Be advised: in many of the accounts, the gods promised to return.
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