Depends on how smart they are and what form they take. I don't think too many people would care about space bacteria.
It's not so much about people handling the information, it's about what we do with it.
We can't live peacefully with different ethnicities in our own nation, let alone other nations around the world. If aliens did exist, there's no doubt in my mind we'd be at war with them.
We are far from ready to interacting with alien species.
Adapt and survive, the way we have always lived. We live and learn new things and when we do we find a way to learn to live with it. Saying the earth was round, that would of been alien at some point. If you told me as a kid that my phone, could do everything, camera, mp3 player, all functions of a computer, connect to the internet without a wire?
Take all that into consideration, handling it would be fine, if not lets throw some Hollywood in there and have an independence day or AVP shiz.
Yea ikr, that's what Stephen Hawkin said, that when people from other places have encountered people from other places here on earth we haven't done so in good ways, but nowadays we have come a long way right? So I think it is possible.