There are more planets than stars in the Milky Way.

[AngusJS]

http://www.space.com/14200-160-billion-alien-planets-milky-galaxy.html

And 2/3 of those stars have Earth-like planets orbiting them.

:o

[kiwi_2005]

And that's just one galaxy out of billions in our universe, then we have physicists believe there are multiple universes. And most of us believe we are the only ones living in this dimension/universes or what ever you want to call it. Selfish much? :O:

[Rilder]

Well there is definitely Extra-terrestrial life out there, even if its exceptionally rare. (Especially to find Extra-terrestial life existing at some level anywhere near us, I suspect most have already passed their time and gone extinct [Terran life has had it's near misses!] or has yet to form)

However, contrary to the beliefs of the History channel, I doubt they have visited Earth. :O:

[Skybird]

All assumptions we make about the universe, suns, planets and the distriubutiuojn of life forms, comes as the result of perception and thinking menchnaisms and establioshed working routines that we call human, and "science". But by using our words and methods and approaches, we already have filtered and limited the possible conclusions. Therefore I have become very hesitent to define "life" on the basis of Earthly carbon entities, and to assume we know what is going on out there with other civilisations just because we flatter ourselves by claiming we make educated guesses. We do not even know the deep oceans of our own planet in full!

The simple truth about life out there is: we just don't know, and we do not even have a clue about anything living outside the solar system, it's forms, its motivations. I think quite often that when it comes to the possible forms of alien life, only few people realise the full meaning of the word "alien" and instead antropomorphise without realising it.

I once translated a passage of Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris", German translation, for an essay:

We start out into cosmos, we are prepared
for everything, that is the loneliness, the
struggle, the martyrdom, death. For modesty’s
reason we do not speak it out, but
sometimes we believe that we are wonderful.
However, that is not all, and our
readiness turns out to be just acting.
Actually we do not want to conquer all
space, we just want to expand Earth up to
its’ boundaries! Some planets have to be
like a desert like the Sahara, others have to
be as icy as the poles, or tropical like the
Brazilian jungle. We are humanitarian, and
we are noble, we do not want to subjugate
other races, we just want to bring them our
values, and adopting their inheritance. We
think we are the knights of the holy contact.
That is the second lie. Humans we do seek,
no one else! We do not need other worlds,
we need mirrors! We don’t know what to do
with other worlds. We want to find our own
idealized image; these globes, these civilizations
here have to be more perfect than ours,
while in others we hope to find the
image of our own primitive past. However,
there is something on the other side that we
do not accept, against which we fight, and
after all it is not only the pure distillate of
human virtues that we have brought with us
from Earth, the heroic monument of mankind!
We have come here like we really are,
and if the other side is showing us this
truth, this part of it that we hide – then we
are unable to accept that!”