Ah yeah. Well, let me state, that I'm really into astronomy, I had a small telescope before, read books, knew all the northern constellations etc.. And as I looked into all the recent research about the possiblity of organic life in our OWN solar system (almost all smaller bodies have/had water or ice here, and some traces of other essential stuff that is needed)... and coutning in the size of our Universe (as you already made point) I think that is almost impossible that we are alone. And I really hope that we will find a lot of "interesting" things in the next 50 years (like thinking of all the possibilities with the next and last upgrade on the Hubble telescope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-125) Besides, we have a lot going in astronomy (for example, the dark-matter research is really a hot topic now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter) , and the Galaxy gets richer with all those explorations day-by-day. A hungarian research goes global: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080609-mm-extrasolar-moons.html So get your RSS link on atronomy, guys As a stuborn european (lol), I don not believe in any USA/Russia goverment conspiracy theories, and I'm quite sure, there are no visitations. These are just modern myths of some sort based on many sources (from fear to creativity). I have my thrust in the scientists. If they will find something, they will let us know (just think about it: The first dude who finds ET with proof will be the most famous name ever in human history.Ever!). And, alien civilization might come in handy for us with all the tensions raising again between new and old superpowers. I can't see a reason why any goverment would hide anything really. It's something that is getting people together (new universal foe or friend, no matter). But again, I don't believe in visitations, though I'm sure they're out there somewhere (possibly a lot of them). Good point, but as I wrote before, I think this is still in the field of astronomical research (and that covers a lot of things, not just huge lenses starring at nebulas) If there would be a huge UFO floating around somewhere in the Outer Rim (lol) that could be spotted from all around the world from different institutes and their telescopes. Maybe we would laugh about the first announcement and proofs (I don't think so) but if there is something, others can find it too. Getting spiritual with this makes things even more complicated. I'm not againt theories about aliens with telepatic skills, pure energy lifeforms whatsoever. But if we handle the extrateressial research with a statement like "mind over matter"... well I guess that's dead-end, and it does go back to things like religion (T. Cruise!!!! arghh) and esoterism. I don't think there is any need for that. For neat little first contact, we still need any scientific proof of their existence (witch is out there, I'm sure) Of course, we humans won't change. We want to have everything ASAP. The Galaxy is a rather (huge) interesting place, there's always something new..so... people are working on it, don't worry! Maybe our grandchildren (or their kids) will succeed with this exploration (so what? Disappointed? ). But I'm a dreamer too, I hope to see something of all this. (If we don't nuke each other out before that.)