I think they do exist if you consider the reason Star Trek takes for why aliens don't make themselves known to us. I do not think we are at a civilizational point to join the interstellar community in dignity and peace, assuming that community exists. Therefore, the aliens let us cook and leave us alone. We aren't ready.

Profit motivation aside, I'm pretty agnostic on this question so I'm answering "no" by default since I think "really exist" implies a certain level of confidence that I don't think pure fermi estimation can justify.

But also... lot of mana to be made here voting no

Somewhere in the universe, yes.

@asmith prove it. Life is so rare that in the vast majority of Universes similar to ours there is never any life.

@jim Shifting the burden of proof. But you have no idea how rare or not rare life is, we have sampled less than a billionth of a percent of the planets in just our observable universe, and of the ones we have studied, we aren't even 100% certain that there isn't life on the ones we've physically landed on (Mars).

@Pykess ignore me i just want to win my manas