Add to your reading list: The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and, Deaths End - a trilogy by Cixin Liu.
The Dark Forest answers Fermi’s conundrum - if there are aliens, where are they?
I’ve read most of the others.
I have an idea about what that major ‘religion’ might look like.
Anyone wanting to be truly informed on the topic would do well to read all of Dr Jacques Vallee’s works on the subject.
Also, EXO-VATICANA by Tom Horn and Cris Putnam—a 600 page SUMMARY with massive 10’s of thousands of pages of references on the DVD available with the print version.