AD, are you saying that there isn't an advanced civilization out there because they haven't contacted us. That has got ot be one of the stupidest things I've heard. How big is the universe? No one knows, but scientists guess (I have no idea where they get their ideas) that there are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, or something like that, and 100 billion galaxies out there. That's a huge f*cking area!
Light-travel is a tricky subject. You could travel from here to the nearest star outside our solar system at the speed of light and take at least 20 years to get there. So the only ways that a creature can travel billions of light years is either a black hole, if they work, or go at super-light speeds. But you would have to go millions of times the multiple of c (speed of light) and how that would work, I have no idea. Then again, there could be ways that we obviously have no idea about, but what are the chances that they would come to our planet out of all that exists.
I do believe there is life out there, I just don't think we will see it for thousands of years.