They may not any smarter than us. We ourselves may only be one lucky technological break away from interstellar travel. Who knows?
And suppose there is a superior intellect — it could very well be more like the gap between us and chimps, than us and ants.
Maybe. Or maybe we are their intellectual ants. For every Einstein, Shakespeare, or JohnPaul2 — we have thousands of islamonazis and obama voters. The numbers aren’t favorable.