There is plenty of life on this planet, yet we are still alone, in that we can't have any meaningful communication with a single other species.

What is it going to feel like when we find little cockroaches on Mars, or fish in the oceans of Europa? It's going to be profound in that we're not the only place where life has developed. It will be scientifically interesting because we will want to know how life developed differently, is there an alternative to DNA, for example. Is it non-water based, non carbon-based?

But many many people are going to have a 'meh' reaction. We have plenty of life surrounding us that we can't talk to. What's the big deal.

What if life developed on the remote planet that is 99% as sophisticated as us, like chimps for examples, but didn't make the final step to civilization because they didn't have opposable thumbs or something. They won't be able to comprehend us, or what we are.

There's a recent Onion article covering this topic:

"Nation Demands NASA Stop Holding Press Conferences Until They Discover Some Little Alien Guys"

http://www.theonion.com/article/nation-demands-nasa-stop-hol...