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Then there is always the Fermi Paradox

The Fermi paradox:
the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates[1] for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.[2] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) are:

There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun,[3][4] and many of these stars are billions of years older than the Solar system.[5][6]
With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets,[7][8] and if the Earth is typical, some may have developed intelligent life.
Some of these civilizations may have developed interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.[9]
According to this line of reasoning, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens. In an informal conversation, Fermi noted no convincing evidence of this, leading him to ask, “Where is everybody?”[10][11] There have been many attempts to explain the Fermi paradox,[12][13] primarily either suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial life is extremely rare or proposing reasons that such civilizations have not contacted or visited Earth.

The answer is simple - the universe is too young and dangerous for any civilization to survive long enough and close enough to be even detected.

E.g., say we are the first. Not only is it a question of how long would it take to achieve interstellar travel, but how long until we are obliterated by either volcanism or meteor strikes.

The speed of light problem is real. If we survive 10000 more years, that’s only a spherical radius of 10000 light years for us to be detected.

Someone else would have to be that close and able to detect us. Signals we generate would be weak anyway, which’d reduce the distance. Even if that were the case, by the time they’d get here, we’d already be gone...

There have been many attempts to explain the Fermi paradox,[12][13] primarily either suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial life is extremely rare or proposing reasons that such civilizations have not contacted or visited Earth.

Other than his atomic work, I'm not familiar with the Fermi paradox

I will say this. There may be intelligent life out there but it may no longer exist. They may have attained modern weapons or germ warfare and killed themselves off long before we appeared. Or they may develop long after we do ourselves in.

As for me, I've see NO evidence of Alien life forms visiting Earth. None.

the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates
= = =

Isn’t that the reasoning Tom Foley used with Bush and Iran-Contra, that there is no evidence, which proves how well Bush, et.al. hid it.

As my aging memory recalls, Senator.

Here is the PJ Paradox:

With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets...

Then wouldn't they be likely to have Earth-like lifespans? I think a big barrier is when life only lives for 100 years, and only plans for a few years out at a time.

How does life like that cross a galaxy?

-PJ