Tin Pot
Guru
Are there aliens?..........................for me that's a definite.
Are some sentient and have technical abilities is another question, but I would think yes.
Between 200,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way alone, and the Milky Way is a small galaxy. It's a good bet that they all have planets of some description. A vast amount of real estate for life to get started and grab a foothold. A number of these planets will be in the 'Goldilocks zone' so possibly life as we know it. Other planets may have life as we don't know it. For life read 'aliens'.
Some estimate put the number of species on our relatively small planet as close to 1 trillion ( no idea how they come up with that figure) with only 1000th of one per cent described.
Given that chemistry and so on will act the same here as it does everywhere else, and given the fact that Earth is teeming with life, for me the universe is crawling with life. We just happen to be capable or asking the questions.
Are they visiting us? No idea. But listening to various educated scientists/cosmologists discussing it I am always amazed at how small minded they seem.
In one discussion I heard...............'well look if there are beings capable of interstellar or even inter-galactic travel...........why would they bother to look at us?'
Completely ignoring the fact that biologists will spend their their whole career studying earthworms or fruitflies. Scientists and biologists constantly get excited by discovering anything previously undescribed. If they are here it's because they are curious, and even 'yet another life form' let alone a sentient life form would be of immense interest.
Not saying they are here like.
I love your confidence in the current zeitgeist.
I’d encourage you to read the Manifold series by Stephen Baxter. You’ll love it, I’m sure. I did.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49783-manifold