A rather unusual topic.

[Jessica]

One thing to be considered is that technology is ever changing.  We haven't a clue to how alien life has evolved.  They be able to do things far more advanced than any science fiction we have imagined.
I personally have seen a ball of arc white light traveling with the contour of the land in the canyon I lived in after it had traveled a documented long distance then exiting into space over the SF Bay Area at a very high rate of speed.  This was seen not just by myself but by many.
Some may claim baloney, but I am certain what I saw and it was and is a technology unknown.   A ball of light during the mid-day traveling at subsonic speeds.  This was not a plane or missile.
It was clearly a ball that seemed to be an actively flaring arcs of energy surrounding it.
I don't discount the idea in the least that this was not of this planet.
This happened in 1975

[Stevie]

The SETI project was created to detect intelligent life with the hopes of communicating with it. We currently cannot communicate with the other intelligent life on this planet.

[Janes Groove]

I doesn't really matter.

Big picture: Our alien overlords are already jamming any and all transmissions coming in or out of our air space.

[AvaNovum]

Something I have thought about and discussed with friends over the years.  I grew up in the shadow of JPL here in LA and my friends parents were primarily Aerospace Engineers.  I am of the mind that we are perceived as a immature species and culture that is best to avoid. Would our society even survive if we learned beings existed elsewhere in the universe? Not more that a few centuries ago (1600's) Galileo was convicted of Heresy for suggesting the earth was not the center of the universe. Honestly, we are so primitive that we still use fire as the primary power source for all our technology (Coal and gas power generation is just fire heating water to make steam that turns a turbine). 
We have a few hundred more years of fossil fuel left to fully convert to a sustainable solution assuming we don't wipe ourselves out with wars or destroy the environment to the point that our species goes extinct.
Here is to hoping we can overcome our frailties and survive long enough to advance enough to find out who else is out there.