But wouldn’t we see them if they were here?
It’s called space for a reason. It’s hard for the human mind to wrap itself around just how vast even our own solar system is, how many solid bodies there are, etc.
If they maintained relative radio quiet and used only directional signals or lasers you could hide a sizable alien settlement in our solar system and we’d be unlikely to find it unless we got lucky. Space is just so damn big.
SETI has checked a few grains of sand on the beach and found nothing and you now have people making tortured arguments about the Fermi paradox and great filters.
We have barely looked, and given things like Project Orion we ought to pay more attention to our own cosmic back yard. The percentage of even our own solar system we have explored is miniscule.