Could E.T. have influenced religion?

[Darwinian]

Could E.T. have influenced religion? If the question had been 'Did' then I would probably say it's very, very unlikely. However, with the word 'Could' then we are in the realms of possibility.

Now, I'm pretty sure that this universe is swamped with life, most of that life is probably microbial although we are of course basing all our assumptions on the only biology that we know of, which is this planet. I mean, who knows what nature as realised that we can't even imagine.

Anyway, a percentage of microbial planets will no doubt have developed 'animal' life and again, a percentage of those planets with multi-cellular life will have spawned intelligent life on some level that we can understand. Now all you need is for some of these worlds to develop technology and start exploring and developing further and further.

Also, one must remember that it only takes one advanced civilisation to spread beyond the confines of its own system and start colonising other systems to, over millions of years, create multiple 'alien races' that can all trace their ancestory back to one planet. This is something that is never factored into the Drake equation, much to my annoyance....

So, to me, the chances that we are alone in the universe or even our own galaxy are very low and to answer question, "Could we have visited by some people from other worlds in the past?" and "Could they have mucked about with early societies on some level or another?" then the answer has to be yes. However, as I'm sure that this has happened on countless worlds similar to ours throughout the mists of time and space, I don't believe it has happened here.