Don't you mean "a few trillion friends"?
I mean, MY gut bacteria are my friends. Some good, some bad, but most of them fun, at least in some ways.

Option 4: there are 2 (not one but TWO) hulls, semi-equipped taking up space in a facility that is supposed to turn out military ship next. What kind of military ships? For which country? Can those hulls be repurposed, for say, said followup contracts?

Okay, time to start a new conspiracy theory:

Do you mean the one from the chinese market, with markings from the russian bio-lab?

Probably will turn out to be a noise complaint along the lines : "Keep it down with your radio emissions! A species is trying to hibernate here!" Other option: It's advertisement for things we don't need like self-sealing stem-bolts or things we can't afford like easy environmental cleanup solutions, clean energy production, a universal cure for all diseases...

Yes, China has manufactured stories. So has almost everyone else. Manufactured stories have a purpose. The question here is: Which purpose would this one have?

Would either side, alien and human alike, even recognize the other as 'intelligent', or for that matter, as beings/entities at all?

depends on what they consume, but then again if they need radioactive waste, we would be for a limited amount of time getting along with them just fine... all the radioactive waste disappearing 'n stuff

actually, no, but the statistics that I myself falsified point to that. And I always read and write at other peoples risk.

...considering where we are, in relation to other inhabited patches of the universe, that is no surprise to me

at last, another one that saw the reference here

wrong again: the moon is made of swiss cheese... this is proof, its one of the holes.

or is that wrong too? and the moon is a living being? and this is its 'out' hole?

so, if you get sent, let say a bank balacne statement from somone else and some bank you don't do business with, to your (snail) mail box and you just disregard it as spam and further more you disregard anything else from this bank as spam as well (remember you do not do business with them), then a judge can rule that the mailbox is removed and that the postman can not deliver ANY mail to your mailbox anymore... ever again?

sounds interesting, tell me more about this.
this would mean no bills, no unwanted solicitations, no subpoena for that matter, NOTHING could be sent to you by mail, as you would not a an address that mail can be delivered to

personally, I'd find a world, in which you do NOT have lock up/away anything and still be sure that it would still be there unharmed when you come back to it, much more interesting to live in.

you meant to post this in the forum of Dr. Ruth... this is /.

ever been to italy? What wall?