You're thinking interstellar when you should be thinking interplanetary. Or even closer.
“Or even closer.”
Inter-dimensional, both time and space.
Or inter-dimensional, or they have always been here. At any point we could have been conquered but haven’t. Thus they need something with us in place. There has to be other planets in this galaxy with the same natural resources that have no inhabitants so why Earth?
The Trans-humanism ideology/religion would fit nicely into the our alien brother/creators have returned to reveal themselves and “save” humanity. Even more interesting would be a situation where say one group of aliens saved humanity from another group of hostile aliens. Would they become our new gods?