I don’t think it’s a lack of creativity - our brains try to turn all sorts into faces and monsters and whatever else as it’s evolutionary beneficial to turn that shadow into a lion because there’s a small chance it could be, or that rock into a face because it could be a friend or foe, even down to looking at a mouse gripping something while eating and thinking “it’s like us”… When you consider that, of course aliens are going to look somewhat familiar as we’ve learnt to identify human traits better than nonhuman traits