> I don't think ET will be vastly more intelligent than us

I'm not so sure. In that scenario, there's something that we're communicating with, right? Given humanity's limited capacity in that regard, the mere fact that we've found something that can reciprocate would, to me, indicate that it's likely to be a little further along than we are.

It's really a matter of who goes to whom. If we meet aliens on our turf, well, they had to get here somehow. And since we can't really get there too easily, they must be a bit better off.