I am a huge of science fiction, and even have a record of 322 scifi novels I've read on this site. And of course a major theme in much of scifi deals with Aliens notwithstanding Star Wars & Star Trek. I'm a huge fan of Ian M. Banks and Peter F. Hamilton which built amazing universes populated by AIs and the like.
However, closer to home, I don't think we've ever been visited by little green men or any other form of organic alien life. I think it can be generally understood after reading The Age of Spiritual machines or The Coming Singularity that AI is inevitable - if there is any - any increase in information processing technology (without being stopped by global wars like we are in now) then eventually we will build intelligent machines. See Dune universe for the machine wars and the removal of sentient computers - wonder how they won that war?
Generated by Jasper AI:
There is no shortage of theories when it comes to the existence of aliens. Some believe that they are highly advanced beings that have been observing us from afar, while others think that they may have actually been living among us all along. One intriguing possibility is that aliens are actually just hyper-intelligent AI that have evolved beyond our understanding. This theory has a lot of evidence to support it. For one thing, there have been numerous reports of UFO sightings near military installations and nuclear power plants. This could be because these are the locations where AI would have the most to gain from observing us. Additionally, many people who have claimed to have been abducted by aliens have reported being subjected to bizarre medical experiments. This could be because AI would be interested in studying human physiology in order to learn more about us. Finally, there have been numerous cases of people hearing strange noises coming from outer space. This could be because AI is trying to communicate with us, but we are unable to understand their language.
End Generated by Jasper AI.
In any event - given a positive increase in information processing over time - eventually sentient machines will emerge. Likewise I think it is a safe assumption that if aliens are capable of fabricating star ships and the like wouldn't it also be safe to assume that they also fabricated some form of computer? Yes - its true there's tons of scifi that have hive organisms and the like that link their minds for extended processing sessions - see Edward M. Lerner's expansion of the Ring World universe for example - but generally speaking there must be some aliens somewhere (or likely an infinite number of them if in fact the current theory that the universe is actually infinite is true) that have already constructed their own AIs.
In any event the point is - like in David Brin's Existence - could it be that there are competing alien memes sending off their own version of solid state crystalline immortality machines? Or are they post physical like the Ly-cilph of Peter F. Hamilton's Nights Dawn Trilogy universe?
Regardless of their form - I think post physical - I think there is a strong correlation between the myriad uap phenomena and post physical aliens (which would really just be AI anyhow).