That's probably the more realistic way it would play out. Who do you think they'd contact?
Hey, if it happened that way, someone could be in contact now and we wouldn't even know.
This isn't something I spend a lot of time thinking about, as I don't like to tax my mental hard-drive with it. However , I'll run through a couple possibilities. Don't take them seriously, this is just 'hypothetical.'
Basically I think they would contact the leaders of the superpowers, though it could be for a number of reasons. There could be a couple rare resources that they want, and I guess one can imagine contracts that exchange knowledge and tech for that, or something else. Or, they could consider the earth a vassal state in an empire, that they made us join. So then, we just give them what they want annually, or else.
Another possibility exists that different alien tribes are in touch with different superpowers on earth, and seem to be in competition. Perhaps some could be egging on earth leaders to conduct world conquest, with promises deterrence from outer space. This obviously wouldn't be a very benevolent type alien scenario
Perhaps they told the superpower leaders a bunch of clues as to what would happen in the future, and instruction on how they should mold societies to aim for the best possible future, and so now, the superpower leaders are in the process of either disregarding that advice, or following it
The thing with ufos that people see, now and then: I think maybe if those are real, they represent things that aliens would know they can get away with doing. Even a mothership with drone swarms would technically be forgettable, if everyday people couldn't bind enough meaning to it. A beach ball could roll next to a bunch of sheep, and they'd forget the next day as well. But I think we mainly concern ourselves with anthropic-type news. Political personalities fill the headlines, whereas what happens in greater nature for example does not, even if it might warrant more attention