I'm fairly confident we aren't the only intelligent species in the universe..dolphins are pretty smart too! Being serious though, it very likely that there are more planets out there with other intelligent lifeforms.
As far as visiting us? I'm inclined by nature to lean towards no until I personally see some hard evidence to the contrary. There is certainly a lot of evidence out there that is allegedly evidence of ETs but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of it is really only evidence of something we can't readily explain. For me something is mundane until proven otherwise because most things are mundane. Thats just my view of the world and I'm sure there many other ways to look at it but it makes the most sense to me.
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I would also like to point out that throughout our history as a species we have had dozens of incidents where science has slowed to a halt or vast sums of knowledge has been lost. Aside from the commonly cited dark ages are several other examples. Just to cite one of them; Pythagoras of Samos (a name most will recognize because of the Pythagorean theorem) was among one of the first great mathematical minds to examine the idea of not just creating formulas but by using basic rules to build a system for mathematical proofs. The advantage of this was that a formula could be shown with unassailable logic to be absolutely true, and thus it could be trusted. Over his life he built up a following of scholars who were known as "Pythagoreans" who, nestled in the city of Croton (now Southern Italy), produced volume after volume of mathematical insights. Among them were the basis of Euclidean Geometry and its foundational axioms. Unfortunately for a number of reasons (fear being one) the entire brotherhood was sworn to secrecy on their works and much of it was destroyed. The incites that we now attribute to them today would hardly require a single book let alone the untold number of volumes they had created, there is no way to know what was lost but its hard not to think how much the loss has set us back.
All of that happened circa ~500 BC (Pythagoras himself lived from 572BC to 497BC). And this is hardly the only instance of lost knowledge let alone the largest loss, for instance the loss of the Library of Alexandria. Things like this have plagued our species for thousands of years and there is no reason to suspect that another species is necessarily prone to such destructive acts. When you consider all of the time we've lost because of these things you have to wonder what technologies we will discover in the next 100, 200, or 500 years, what will we have learned by then? And could we have been there today without those acts of senseless destruction?
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The point I'm making is merely that it is extremely possible and actually somewhat likely that a species that evolved around the same time as we did could be more advanced then us, let alone one that evolved say 5,000 years before us or more.
@Retrasado,
Your view assumes they know nothing that we do not. I agree completely with you that under our current knowledge and technological limits it is fairly unfeasible to make such trips, but we can't assume that about a possible alien civilization for the reasons I specified above.
In addition I will add that it is widely believed amongst physicist that folding space for the purpose of travel is technically possible under our current understanding. To be clear their position is essentially that it breaks no rules they can see and so should be possible, whether or not its a viable option in terms of energy cost, and whether or not it is safe are questions far beyond our current understanding but the fact that the door is open means it is possible for another civilization to have done it.
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