I believe that we will find conclusive evidence of past or current extraterrestrial life within my lifetime. With all of the probes that we're sending to Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as our increased observations of potentially habitable exoplanets, we're surely going to find something.
But I highly doubt we will ever come into contact with intelligent life, let alone life that is capable of space travel. Experience here on Earth indicates that such life is extremely rare. Of all the trillions of different life forms that have ever existed on this planet, humans are the only species capable of space travel so far. So the nearest space-faring civilization could be millions of light years away. And if the speed of light acts as a natural barrier, then it should be no wonder that we've never made contact, and likely never will. It took over three billion years for life here on Earth (a substantial chunk of the time when the universe has been able to support potentially habitable planets) to evolve to the point for a single species to begin leaving the planet (and not very far). So it makes sense that the universe is likely not even remotely old enough yet for a life form to evolve to the point when it can break through that speed of light barrier (which I think is a much larger hurdle, if it's even possible, than most people think) and make its civilization known to others.
Otisthealleycat t1_j7d3tsg wrote
Reply to People knowing that the Earth isn't the center of the universe yet not believing in aliens... by turquoisepaws
I believe that we will find conclusive evidence of past or current extraterrestrial life within my lifetime. With all of the probes that we're sending to Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as our increased observations of potentially habitable exoplanets, we're surely going to find something.
But I highly doubt we will ever come into contact with intelligent life, let alone life that is capable of space travel. Experience here on Earth indicates that such life is extremely rare. Of all the trillions of different life forms that have ever existed on this planet, humans are the only species capable of space travel so far. So the nearest space-faring civilization could be millions of light years away. And if the speed of light acts as a natural barrier, then it should be no wonder that we've never made contact, and likely never will. It took over three billion years for life here on Earth (a substantial chunk of the time when the universe has been able to support potentially habitable planets) to evolve to the point for a single species to begin leaving the planet (and not very far). So it makes sense that the universe is likely not even remotely old enough yet for a life form to evolve to the point when it can break through that speed of light barrier (which I think is a much larger hurdle, if it's even possible, than most people think) and make its civilization known to others.