[gumby]

The issue of "if you lose your keys at night, the first place you look is under the lamppost" problem with searching for alien life has bothered me too, since I was about the age of this professor's trip to Hawaii. But unlike her my musing never resulted in anything useful.

I'm so glad someone is thinking about this and that that person sounds like a broad thinker!

[Zigurd]

Alternatives to the biochemistry of Earth life are hard to imagine. Silicon replacing carbon is one possibility but, as yet, despite silicon being vastly more common than carbon, we know there is no silicon life on Earth. It's just at too much of an inherent disadvantage, if it is even possible. I would bet on panspermia over silicon life.

[gumby]

Conceiving an alien intelligence is pretty impossible too.

[Zigurd]

Imagining an alien intelligence is easier than imagining alternative biochemistry. Odds are looking relatively good that we may meet an alien intelligence by building one.