other life

NASA recently announced that they have detected a number of planets in the next galaxy over that are in the "sweet spot" where they could sustain life of some sort as they define it. Who is to know what kind of unique beings there could be. We have such a limited understanding of what life is, why should we pigeonhole other beings? I bet we can't even detect when there is life cause we don't know what it is. Meanwhile, maybe what we consider fantastical beings, are actually in existence somewhere.