[Steve_Seattle]

"The question is: Is there life near here, in our neighborhood of stars?"

This kind of language annoys me, i.e., "our neighborhood of stars." Any astronomy expert, correct me if I'm wrong, but the nearest star group is Alpha Centauri, about 4.24 light years away. A light year represents about 5.87 trillion miles, so - apart from our own sun - our nearest star "neighbors" are at least 23 trillion miles away.

[dfwgator]

It’s a great big universe
And we’re all really puny

We’re just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney

[Kip Russell]

Any astronomy expert, correct me if I'm wrong, but the nearest star group is Alpha Centauri, about 4.24 light years away. A light year represents about 5.87 trillion miles, so - apart from our own sun - our nearest star "neighbors" are at least 23 trillion miles away.

Quite so. Most people who think we're being visited by aliens either don't understand the distances involved or, if they do, simply handwave away speed of light problem. "They must have invented warp drive".

Suuuuuure they have.