Seems like a quick-fix answer but here is the news on Oumaumau (poppa-oumaumau). [nbcnews.com]

Logic says "Of course there's other life in space!" The question would be...could we find it? Would we recognize it? How could we protect it from other humans? ("Keep the evangelicals off that space ship!" )

Think about this: Of all the known elements that all matter is made of in the universe, we are cobbled together from the least complex of the bunch. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc. These are the most abundant. It is impossible to think that in the vastness of space there isn't another assembly of these non-rare elements that form life.
One does not simply scoop up a cup of ocean water and upon seeing no life conclude there aren't any whales or sharks or plankton.
Life is out there right now...we just haven't seen it yet.

If we are it, that would be an unfathomable waste of space.

I think it's unquestionable that there is life out there. I think it's probably unquestionable that there is extraterrestrial life in our solar system (Moons of Jupiter/Saturn, or under the crust of mars)... any find of a plant, fungus, microbe, etc is huge, and isn't really a very high bar in my expectation. If we found the equivalent of dogs or dolphins, we'd have an unending argument about whether it "counts" as intelligent life. For humans to admit it's intelligent life, it'll have to be equal or greater to us, in our "opinion." The implications of any finding is massive though... but the real social changes may be muted when any life we find is not considered greater than us.

Planets are fairly common and it looks like planets that could, theoretically and with sufficient time, develop and support life are not uncommon. Assuming that we don't destroy ourselves over the next century, we are going to find "alien" life eventually.

That said, life is not the same as intelligent life and intelligent life doesn't necessarily imply the potential to create a technological civilization. You could have a planet that develops life, but retains too little energy to form truly complex life, and the smartest dolphin cannot master the full potential of fire or electricity.

So far I have two dozen terrestrials but I can always use some extra. How many do you have

Are there aliens? Almost certainly.
Are there intelligent alien species? I doubt that earth is the only planet of trillions that can sustain life long enough for intelligence to involve.
Have aliens visited earth? That is unlikely in the extreme.

This has, so far, been the most rationally derived discussion on extraterrestrials I have been involved in for years. I generally agree that 1) live on other planets is most likely occurring or occurred, and 2) because of the vastness of space they probably have not visited this planet (or if they had it was probably a passing fancy).

I also know that I don't know enough about what might potentially fuel these hypothetical visitors' travels to allow them to traverse time and space to observe the human cautionary tale. Sure, it's fun to think about, but I don't know that I can be led to believe that aliens visit us, study us, or traveled light years to share their technology with us.

What hubris it would take to think that we are the only life-sustaining planet in the universe. Is there life developed enough to master space travel and have they visited us? Don't know. It would take strong evidence to convince me, otherwise I doubt it. Being a great plains dweller with a totally unimpeded view of the sky for more than 60 years, nothing has ever happened on my watch to convince me that anything floating over my head is other than celestial or human made.

It highly probable given the millions of galaxies and billions of planets in our known universe that there is some sort of life. It fascinates me to think that we may be one day discover it. However, with our current technology and the pace at which we are advancing. I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

Everything started with the big bang and the universe has been expanding ever since. It took us a until now to form life intelligent enough to venture out a little bit into the universe. That's our measure of how long it takes for such life to evolve. The radius of the universe is estimated to be 46.5 billion light years. To make contact with a similarly advanced life form it would have to have developed within the distance and direction of our attempts to locate it. Chance are that there is advanced life out there, but the chances of finding it are very low. If we go back in evolutionary history, single cell organisms have been around a lot longer and are more likely to exist in the universe at a close distance. Of course they don't send out signals so we need to go find them.

Definitely exist. The odds of it not existing are much too high. We are as common as star dust out there. LIfe may not what be as the earth god tells us. But then again what is an earth god.

The potential for extraterrestrial life is certainly there. The claims of them being here and mingling even in minor ways with us are not provable. There is no evidence, but the vast scope of the universe would almost certainly have to make it a reality. How big is our universe? It may be ever expanding without an end.

It's a big place out there.... Way bigger than we can wrap our head around it. There is more life in many places all so far away from each other that all wonder the same question all the time

We don't yet understand abiogenesis, but I think it's incredibly likely that conditions somewhere else in this overwhelmingly vast universe were such that life could/did develop. I'm less confident regarding the degree and direction of evolution elsewhere, however, because we are unsure what conditions are necessary for abiogenesis and subsequent evolution. Some scientists hypothesize that life didn't actually start on Earth, but that it instead started elsewhere and space debris carried microbes to Earth where conditions were suitable for evolution. If that's true, we might be an incredibly unlikely development. So, I'm confident life exists elsewhere in the universe, but I'm uncertain about complex life and intelligence.

Evidence that ET aren't ou there is unlikely impossible. the problem is, like us and the rest of them... we're all wandering around the universes, trying find each other.

Very unlikely there would not be life all around in the mid regions of this and countless other galaxies. Quite likely there are civilizations among this life. Unlikely travelers from other stars will visit us or us visit them. I think establishing interstellar radio connections are not out of the question but radio lag time will put a damper on the fun.