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I’ll take that one... With a question of my own ;)

In 300 ish years time, Earth/humans have gone from steam power to electricity to nuclear to apparent cold fusion.

In under 1000 we have gone from burning people at the stake for even discussing cosmic matters to a human created object leaving the solar system.

In 5000, we have gone from mud huts, caves and primitive stone structures to 1/4 mile skyscrapers built in a couple years. We are on the verge of printing entire houses on site via 3D printing.

We have come incredibly far. But on the universe timescale of billions of years, our existance as a species barely totals even a fraction of a percent. The above is something I think we all can go to any library/google and read as factual.

Now, considering all the above, what makes anyone think we could ecen understand the messages/emissions of a sentient species that had literally billions of years of a head start on us? As Clarke said, (paraphrased) Any sufficiently advanced tech would seem like magic.

IMO, we are looking for ‘answers’ within our understanding, but there is a very real possibility that we don’t even understand what questions we should be asking.

We are on the verge of printing entire houses on site via 3D printing.

I personally believe that 3D printing has the potential to lead to a great leap in real serious space exploration when combined with resources mined from asteroids. For us to really move out into our solar system requires ships much larger than can be launched to orbit. We just aren't going to do much exploration with crews of 3 to 5 men. For real space exploration we need to be able to send crews of 50, 100, or 500 men.

While we send crews of 3 to 5 into space, every one has to have near total knowledge of all systems. If you send a crew of 500, you cut down on the amount of knowledge each man can carry which means whole crews of less specialized people. Think of an aircraft carrier and all the men it takes to operate one with no single man having or needing the knowledge to do all things.

With 3D printing will come the ability to to create space ships the size of aircraft carriers in space. I think people are seriously underestimating our technology and the rate at which its accelerating.

We talked about it a bit last night on this thread.

Asteroid threat in 2032? Don't panic, but don't brush it off

If intelligent “life” is found out there, we probably won’t be able to reach it anytime soon. If it reaches us I doubt it would be organic. If the intelligence could make it’s way across the vast distances of the cosmos I would imagine it would have ditched organic bodies long ago in order to “live” in space much easier. Personally, I think that is where the human race is headed, mechanized bodies containing (or in more cases than not created) consciousness.