RE: Why Haven't We Ran Into Alien Lifeforms Yet?
Judging from my scientific experiment on magic mushroom I'd say they have master faster than light travel but that's only pure musing.
On another train of thought some have advance the idea that maybe galaxy give rise to quite a lot of Earth like condition and Earth like condition mostly give rise to intelligent ape or at least conditions where then environment push on the animals to smarten up their brain to the point of intelligent like abilities.
It might seem really far fetch at first but I don't see why this theory should be dismiss out right. I think it has some merits. People might think ape were only possible because dinosaur got kill by an asteroid but I'd say mammal would have most probably over took Earth whether or not this asteroid impact happened. Cool article by the way.