One thing I don't hear mentioned very often in the "why would aliens bother coming here" debate, is a comparison of UFO behavior and our behavior with other species we study in remote locations.<p>Consider the mountain gorillas in central Africa - we'll send a person out there to sit in the trees and take pictures, and if they catch a glimpse of the human, who cares? Meanwhile, the way we travel to the gorillas home, our cities, our whole way of life are totally unknown and even incomprehensible to the gorillas. What does a gorilla know of internal combustion, or tranquilizer darts, or digital cameras?<p>If there are aliens visiting us, I imagine it's similar. Maybe they're just coming to take pictures and check out what the local tech-apes are up to for a research paper, and if one of the humans catches a glimpse of your spaceship, who cares? Even if they get a clear look at your ship, they have only a vague idea of how it works and what it's for.<p>Maybe there's no aliens, but the universe is a big place and we barely understand it. Our comprehension of what's even physically and technologically possible changes every century. We're just apes who saw a land rover in the distance.