I answered "yes", but the lifeform in question I expect to visit Planet Earth (some time between 10^5 and 10^7 years from now) will be distant descendants of Homo Sapiens no longer aware of their planet of origin.

More generally, I expect that "first contact" with another intelligent species will be between two branches of humanity which by that time will have lost touch with each other -- and will probably look very differently.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.