You need to be a deep sea diver or have a very large tank to meet an alien for a meaningful exchange. For most humans, watching Planet Earth 111 or listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio Four, will give you an insight. I have knitted an octopus and been in an Octopus’s Garden, though that was a children’s soft play area, so doesn’t really count. But we don’t need to be underwater life experts to ponder what it might be like to be an octopus. Experts tell us they are far more intelligent than we previously thought when we were eating them. They certainly have more brains than us, nine altogether and three hearts, so who can guess their thoughts and emotions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infinite_Monkey_Cage

We understand vertebrates, however strange some might be they have the same basic four limbs and backbones and of course one heart and brain. The octopus developed along completely different evolutionary lines, as might an alien on another planet. We have a very vertebratist view of how intelligence can be measured, assuming the longer an animal spends raising its young, the more intelligent it must be.  We can coo over monkeys cuddling their babies and young whales keeping close to their mothers, but have had to come to terms with turtles burying their eggs then heading out to sea, never to see their young. Baby turtles emerge from the sand and head towards the sea, usually getting eaten along the way, without any idea what they are or who their parents are.

Obviously we can’t judge other species by our limited ideas. If your only experience of solitary life was the Covid lockdown and you love meeting friends for coffee, you will find it hard to feel a connection with the octopus.

May not be accurate representation of an octopus.

There are many varieties of octopus, but in human terms it seems their lives are short and lonely, though they could well be very happy exploring their deep sea paradise. Somehow they manage to meet up and mate, with the male having one of his eight arms conveniently adapted for… well we should not intrude into their private lives.

This picture is not from Planet Earth 111

In the Planet Earth 111 film the females gathered at hydrothermal springs two miles below the surface to lay their eggs, the warm water reducing the brood period to ‘only’ two years. During this time mothers don’t eat or move from their spot, gently wafting water over the eggs to keep them clean. By the time the eggs at last hatch the mother is dying. Looking like me when I fall asleep at meetings or watching television, we saw the Octopus eyelid droop further and further. With her last strength she urges the last few babies out, all the tiny ethereal creatures drift up and up never to see their mother again. Soon all the mothers are dead.

I wonder if the octopi communicate with each other during their long nesting. Are the last existential thoughts of an octopus ‘What are we all here for anyway and what’s the point of being an octopus?’

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/octopuses-keep-surprising-us-here-are-eight-examples-how.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4D6GpHbswQGYFC1YDL84BnX/the-octopus-garden-the-struggle-to-reproduce