Are Aliens looking for us?

That's a great question that's very hard to answer.

As you might know, NASA has been hunting for evidence of life beyond our planet for quite some time, but so far has come up empty. SETI, the Search for extraterrestrial Intelligence has been trying to detect a radio signal from aliens for a long time, but have as yet to find anything definitive.

UFO enthusiasts and some pseudo scientists claim that aliens have visited Earth often throughout our history and that aliens have even abducted humans. However, the evidence is not scientific for any of this. My take is that it's possible but I'd like to see some solid physical evidence.

Since the Kepler Space telescope has found many thousands of exo-planets around nearby stars, the estimates of habitable planets in our galaxy alone has risen to hundreds of millions. A habitable planet is one with an atmosphere and liquid water on its surface. These new discoveries have raised the possibility of intelligent alien species to possibly a million in our galaxy.

Unfortunately, even with warp drive, traveling to the other side of the galaxy (which we can't see) would take thousands of years. NASA is working on creating a working warp drive engine, but theory says that such a power plant could only move a vessel at 10 times the speed of light. That's only good enough to explore the galaxy in our back yard, so to speak. But, how many intelligent species reside in our cosmic back yard?

The only other method to travel extreme light year distances is to find or create a wormhole. Unfortunately, that technology is out of our reach. Theory claims that a wormhole would collapse to a black hole quicker than one could traverse it. It's possible that science will find a way to alleviate that problem.
All of this indicates that an intelligent alien species would face similar problems in trying to get to us. This could explain why we haven't seen anything like the aliens in 'Independence Day'.

The question then is: why haven't we received a radio signal from an intelligent alien species?
Some astronomers turned philosopher have suggested that we are not worthy or that we are insignificant. I doubt that arbitrary conclusion because a replying alien species would have to have received our radio and TV signals, which have only been traveling out for roughly 90 years. That means our signals have only gotten out that number of light years. There are only so many stars at that relatively close distance, and perhaps none of the planets around those nearby stars has spawned intelligent aliens. In other words, our messages are falling on deaf ears.

Or they could have seen some of our Gilligan's Island episodes and decided that we're an inferior species not worth contacting.

There is also the possibility that aliens don't want to contact us, but I would think that intelligent aliens would wonder if there are any intelligent species out there from their perspective. Sapience implies that a species is aware of its existence and has the wisdom to seek knowledge. Part of that exploration of knowledge would involve trying to determine if there are other intelligent species out in the universe.

But, would they try to go out and hunt for other intelligent life?

I would suggest that the percentage of intelligent species that would be intelligent and clever enough to do that falls to only a few percent. Then the question arises as to how successful they would be. Some people would argue that aliens are more advanced than we are and would have uncovered the science necessary to travel vast distances in space. That's possible, but we have nothing to go on. We can't even prove that life could arise on other planets. In other words, we are a long way from solving the riddle.

Thanks for reading.