G Martin 87 said:
I have no trouble believing that life must exist somewhere else in the universe. However, physics is physics. It's a big leap to go from "we're not alone" to "space faring alien races have traveled across trillions of miles of empty space to visit a tiny blue planet orbiting a relatively tiny star." Practically and physically speaking, the universe can be teeming with life everywhere and yet still be separated by distances that are staggering to comprehend.
You are right. However, what is to say that we have mastered all of physics? I would actually imagine that we have only really scratched the surface of what is truly "possible". Especially when it comes to propulsion.
And the rest is simply a matter of perspective. Trillions of miles may be nothing to another species. Crappy analogy but I consider anything past 15 mins one way to work or school as a commute. My west coast family would die laughing at that. Time and distance is all relative to the beholder. Taking ten years to travel somewhere is meh if your life span is in thousands of our years. Or more. Especially if FTL travel has been attained somehow.
And don't forget, Earth has been a shining "Look at me!" object for many generations now in the amount of radiation we offput in the form of radio waves. Waves detectable via passive means. And what do humans do when we notice something out of the ordinary? We check it out. Such as these Navy pilots above. Probably not a uniquely human thing to do.
Just gotta be open about such things. Nothing wrong with that at all. It is not crazy conspiracy nut talk. It is just realizing that humanity is not all seeing and knowing. As I mentioned, it is all perspective, and our perspectives as short lived organic beings stuck on a single planet is not exactly the most far ranging there is...