The big one to enter into the Drake Equation is. How long do technological civilizations last ? If its only a century or two, before they always self destruct. Then we could be very alone, but sadly, not for much longer.

There only needs to be one doomsday technology out there waiting to be discovered. You push the start button, without realizing the consequences, and you are gone. Personally I think we have already done it, though it is a rather slow burn killer to start with, but it will soon catch us, and it is called agriculture. But I could be wrong, and there could be several others waiting for us to invent.

14!...no...11!...No! No!...12! Yeah, that's it, 12.

If they're out there, and statistically it's extremely unlikely that they aren't, they have not been transmitting any signals we can receive long enough for those signals to reach us, or for some reason, they are masking their signals.

If they are masking those signals, why? If it's prudent for them to avoid announcing their presence to anyone and anything that can receive it, why are we broadcasting ours to whatever is listening?

We started broadcasting into space back in the late '30's. At the speed of light that is at the most a 90 light-year reach, that also means it would take another 90 years to hear back from that distance. If we hear something at this point it will be from a civilization that is within 45 light-years. So hearing from someone would depend on whether or not they have gotten to the level of using radio-telescopes. It has only been since 1937 that we have had a radio-telescope. All we can do is guess as there is no proof of anything of this scientific level so far.

I'm pretty sure all the civilizations out there are alien. But seriously, I think its unlikely we will make contact with an alien civilization anytime soon. If they are significantly more advanced than we are and peaceful they will probably steer clear of Earth. And unlike every alien invasion movie ever made, there's really nothing unique on Earth to make it desirable to aliens... unless they really really want our cookie recipes.

In my opinion, I doubt we'll ever make contact with an alien civilization. If we develop the technology to go far out into space, the smart aliens will hide from us until we go back home.

Aliens would be like, "Shit! It's those damn Earthlings! Turn out the lights and hide before they see us!"

One that we know of, us.

Way more than I would have guessed.