This idea sounds like it originated or was illustrated on the television show Stargate SG-1 and Stargate
Atlantis. According to the story, there was at one time one supreme race. They were extremely advanced and were able to access "universal knowledge". Two different groups between this race had a different of opinion on how to use this knowledge. Once race known as the Ori wanted to use this power to control the normal human population. The other group known as the Ancients or Asurians believed in free will and wanted to use their knowledge in the pursuit of science. This of course took place millions of years ago. The Ancients found that the only way to escape the presence of the Ori was to flee to our galaxy. Since the Ori could not detect their presence, the Ancients used one of their advanced devices to create life throughout the galaxy. Humans evolved into their present form on Earth, of course, and only a few thousand years before our present time another race decided to use them as slaves and took them to other planets via Stargate. The Ancients who were long since perished in their human form lived as energy (they ascended to a different plane of existence). They believed in free will, so they did not interfere. In
the end, humans live on many of the planets that they were taken to thousands of years ago.
Perhaps something relatively similar happened to us. The Universe is vast and other life forms similar to us or even more advanced can be living only a few light years away. The Stargate series was extremely well put-together and explains many of the phenomena that we believe as
UFO sightings.