[Llarry]

A lot to unpack in your post. Here are my thoughts: I think that we will find that life in some form is quite common in the universe. That does not necessarily mean intelligent life and UFOs and all that, but it might.

We are just infants learning to crawl in the realm of travel outside our own atmosphere. Given our level of technology, the distances involved are so immense that we can't really fathom what it would take to explore or contact life elsewhere -- although I think that some kind of (now extinct?) life on Mars seems possible. And perhaps on the moons of the giant planets. Elsewhere? I think that will have to wait a long time, although we continue to add to our planet detection capabilities.

One thing for sure: History has plenty of examples of learned people concluding that we now know everything worth knowing. Ha! We are just babes in the woods. Whether it is astronomy or medicine, etc., we have so much to learn.