How is it that everybody is getting the distance to the nearest star so mucked up?
Alpha Centari a trianary system is 4.2 LYs from here. There may be a brown dwarf even closer.

Given the near-infinite number of stars and planets, it is not possible to believe we are the only life form (the intelligent life form designation is still up for debate) but given the distances, not finding them is hardly surprising. Even our closest star neighbor is 7 light years away. And contact assumes they share the same technology and interest in talking to us.

It seems to me that it's incredibly arrogant to think we're the only life in the universe.
It also makes far more sense than the idea of "gods".

It is possible that another reason we appear to be alone is that we are alone, or nearly so -- not because we are somehow unique, but precisely because we aren't. Because there may be certain "hard stops" in evolution that tend to make sentient species go extinct. For example, the discovery of technology before possessing the wisdom to not use it for mutually assured destruction, or destruction of the biosphere. Or the ability to self-direct evolution without ending up in some kind of dead end or unintended consequences.

So there may have been millions of sentient species that evolved, but very few that get past those evolutionary choke-points. Combine that with the vast distances involved, and the relatively short periods of time where such societies would be leaking radio waves that would give them away ... and it'd explain a lot.

The whole problem revolves around the speed of light. Life or even intelligent life existing elsewhere seems to be a mathematical certainty. The "kicker" is that even speed of light radio waves would take so long to get here that any civilization sending such would have likely died-out before the signals got here. Any you can forget actual travel to another habital planet...you would have to exceed the speed of light to be able to get there and scientists have held that matter ceases to exist as we know it as we approach the speed of light. The closest star system is 10 light years from us...or, 88,000 years worth of todays fastest rockets.

Yes, it is a thing. Yes, aliens have contacted Earth, and yes they may presently be here.

Still slightly more believable than deities doing a seven day cosmic gardening binge.

Agreed. To claim that we are alone in the observable universe is arrogance. If there are other lige forms they must at least have the ability to detect us. We have been sending radio into space for about 100 years now. Any detection would as we were 100 years ago and not present like how we observe the universe as past depending upon the distance of the observed object. Possibly they would listen in if they could understand what they were listing to and decided it wasn’t worth their time. ?

The universe is mind bogglingly huge, very possibly infinite. How could intelligent life not exist out there somewhere? Just not here; apart from humanity and even that’s debatable sometimes

There could very well be other life in other parts of this universe, and probably is, but until some evidence, facts and data are produced to support it, it is just speculation.

Any thing that can have "ism" added to its ass is a real thing.

I don't know if it is real, but l do know it looks really hard to spell!

It's a pretty big thing and extremely diluted with a plethora of madness.

It's not a thing I can say easily.