There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy.  A thousand million.  There are 9 known galaxies beyond ours.  So there are a trillion stars (that’s ten hundred billion stars) in the discovered universe.  The nearest star is over four light years away. The rest are much, or much, much further. A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year at 670 million miles per hour.  It could take centuries or eons for a message traveling at the speed of light to reach us, assuming it was properly directed and not deflected along the way.

A trillion stars would support tens of trillions of planets.  Would you like to bet against those odds that there is not intelligent life out there somewhere.  Are we so unique?