In one of Tucker Carlson's last interviews he brought the matter up with Musk. Musk eloquently responded that he probably knows as much about space as anyone else, and his repsonse was that we as humans do not have any evidence of alien life. I beleive him.
As far as recognition, I do think their are universal constants of things like math, and physics, and specifically patterned statistics that presented properly would be recognizable by one another.
@catfish1957 Providing of course that we were able to communicate with each other on a level that made understanding complex problems possible.
Given the difficulty we have today even communicating on even a semi-intelligent level with Yankees and other denizens of the frozen north,I wouldn't bet money on it being worth the frustration.