Alien talk is funny to me.
Military test bases are way out in the desert because military aircraft testing / training is always loud, occasionally dangerous, often toxic/radioactive and always unpleasant for civilians to be near. Highly recommend you East Valley folks drive out to Luke AFB when the new F-35's come on line and start flying next year. The engines at Sky Harbor are designed to be efficient and as quiet as possible. The engines on fighter jets are designed to defy the laws of physics, because Sir Isaac Newton will get you killed in combat.
Is there alien life out there? Absolutely.
Have they found us? Decent chance. But just like using American satellites to spy on an indigenous culture in the Amazon rainforest, there's a really good chance that we won't recognize the beings or the tools that they're using and this could go on for centuries without our knowledge.
Have we found them? If we had, what are the chances that the US Gub'mint could keep that a secret? This is the same government that couldn't keep Prism / Gulf of Tonkin / Iran-Contra / Watergate / the overthrow of Mossadegh / etc a secret, but it's going to manage to keep the greatest secret in human history?
We've lit the wick on hundreds of atomic bombs in the American southwest, and that may well be interesting to interstellar visitors. There certainly aren't as many witnesses in the south Pacific, rural Kazakhstan, Lop Nor or the Sahara, where the USA, USSR, UK, China and France have popped most of theirs. Why this area (and the Sahara and the Gobi, etc) is a desolate wasteland may also be rooted in some pre-historic event that we don't even know about. Or perhaps aliens are conducting a battle damage assessment from when they flung that meteor at Flagstaff.
I like that scientists and astronomers are looking into this, but I don't hold my breath that we'll find anything that we recognize as intelligent life in our lifetimes. It's out there, but space is ****ing huge.
As for PHX? Good weather. The women are ****ing spectacular. I'm still on the fence with all the sand-colored houses. We've got all the amenities of a big city. A lot of people aren't from here, which is weird. The "local culture" is lacking, and I'm hard-pressed to entertain guests for more than about a day without driving all over the valley (there's not really "THAT" neighborhood here).
Petes2424, welcome to the desert. As a transplanted Stars fan who moved to Glendale this year, I highly recommend putting the Leafs aside in favor of the local team. I put the NHL aside entirely in favor of German soccer and Korean baseball/soccer/hockey (yes, Korean hockey) while I've lived overseas and didn't miss it at all ... far more interesting and enjoyable to be a part of the community of local sports than to be that one guy who sits at home watching the Leafs play on satellite TV. Obviously you're not in Phoenix proper, so attending games will be tricky, but the point still stands ... try it, you'll like it. I still cruise over to see what's happening in forum=44 occasionally, but I don't really miss the green team in Texas at all.
