
Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I have always been of the opinion that aliens advanced enough to travel to us wouldn't hide in the shadows. If friendly, they would announce their presence beforehand, and land in a planned, publicized visit.
If unfriendly, they would simply attack and possibly destroy us.
Either way, there would be no reason for the aliens to hide their existence. If they could travel here, presumably from a staggeringly far distance which we can't even reach right now, they wouldn't have much to fear from us.
Similarly, if we discovered intelligent life, we would make contact, not fly around planes at night and hope to go undetected. This would be especially true if we encountered a society with equivalent advancement to 1940s earth.
I also believe that the chance of intelligent life in the universe -- at least in the portion of the universe where we could be reached or communicated with in some way -- is low. The chance of any kind of life is high, however.