Another perspective on this. We currently study life with a planetary sample size of 1. Just a single additional example, especially one with a completely different origin, would almost certainly change many of our most basic assumptions about what life is and how it works.
It would also lead to a significant power shift in the religious world where individuals have proclaimed their version god as absolute for thousands of years.
An event like this would end up kicking us out of this era, and into another joint-species belief system... Only time will tell if it'll restart the cycle over again or if something new comes from it.
It would be interesting if a survey existed that linked religious affiliation with belief of extraterrestrial life though. I tried to find one but was unsuccessful finding satisfactory research