I think I will stick to pondering the clouds.
I pretty much agree with that. There's too much of speculation, and with the introduction of computers and bits and pieces, together with graphical images, anything can be proven or unproven. And no one can really prove the proved, or disprove what was claimed to have been proven. And the public is more dependent of specialists than ever.
Gosh. The fact is, our scientific era may be more superstitious than any earlier, like the era where Earth was considered flat. Everyone believed it since the authorities said it. In fact, the ones saying it, claimed it on basis of the Bible, while the Bible all the time witnessed that the Earth is round,
http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html, to give a basic comment.
Are we truly getting wiser, or are we getting dumber? Are men loosing their natural born wisdom for gadgets, "run on batteries"? If this is the case, we may have to face God / Truth more stupid than we ever were?
Or perhaps, if God / whatever created various and several living forms / civilizations, will mankind with its somewhat hostile nature, meet them with force? I mean, we always go with guns, don't we?
Not necessarily a question of "is there something", but a question of "how to meet them". Surprise, goes back to Mike's original OP. Now, how did that happen?

Need to scratch my head...