Interviews from those who have had Close Encounters indicate several species visit Earth. We see that they generally don't engage humans. Thus, it is unlikely that they would come, interact and behave as Gods. I would hope they would be more mature than that.

That they are here at all indicates that they have cultures stable enough to persist through time. If they were here during Human evolution, it's possible they might push the species in one direction or another. However, I know of no biochemical or other evidence that would suggest interference. Nothing about our biochemistry suggests anything more than Natural Selection.

There are some possibilities along these same lines that could be included. One, that it is not an either/or proposition, but a combination of both. That is, at some point in evolution the human genome was modified by some kind of higher intelligence. Two, aside from extraterrestrials being the source of that higher intelligence, it's arguably as likely that they could have been time-traveling humans or extraterrestrials. Not that I'm a proponent of any of these possibilities, but if humanity ever does figure out how to travel into the past, it might give us those answers... or inadvertently trigger the modification.

I would love to believe that the gods were ETs but I just can't see it. I believe that the universe is teeming with life but I'm not too sure about higher life, it takes a tremendous amount of coincidences for us to be here. they happened so we are here. if there are any others in the universe IMHO they are few and are between unfortunately. gods were thought up to explain things in the natural world that primitive humans could not explain. A lot of people still buy into this kind of thinking.

Evolution is proven fact. Sounds like what you're talking about is a mixture of Stargate Star Trek and the Thor movies lol