The recent rash of shooting at "UFO"s makes this article bubble to the top of the heap again:
I don't know what they eventually decided; maybe time for them to convene a new meeting!
The problem is that space is absurdly big. The nearest star is around four light-years away. On the fastest craft Earth has ever launched, it would take ~70,000 years to make the journey. It's a scale beyond comprehension. 70,000 years ago nearly all of our human ancestors living at the time were still in East Africa. From Epicurus' birthday to our own time amounts to 3 percent of that "distance".
All that being said, I always thought the retired Vatican Astronomer came off well in Religulous:
Very much enjoyed the novel The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell on this topic
