They Are Here! *

* Let me explain:

• By "they" I mean ET, extraterrestrial intelligent life. 
• And by "are" I mean "maybe, possibly", IF ET exists (and that is still a very big IF). 
• And by "here" I mean the Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud, several dozens AUs out there (so not actually "here")

On the blog Centauri Dreams there was a nice series (Parts one, two and three) how humanity's sphere of existence could gradually, over generations, spread out, hopping from comet to comet, until it reaches our neighbouring solar systems.

And well, if there is not a "Great Filter", and if we presume that ETs exist (and came into existence long before us), they could have settled our Milky Way galaxy within a mere 100 million years (hopping from star to star, as I read somewhere, I unfortunately forgot). So it is is possible that ETs came already to our solar system, and has settled in the Oort cloud, waiting until we come to make first contact (ala the Zoo Hypothesis).

So lets get going, lets go explore the Oort cloud, see what's there, make our living there. Even if ET does not exists, we need to go out there – for science, and for humanity.