Bump. I started a new thread for this concept, but as of at least yesterday, 04/24/15, NASA is experimenting with creating the effects of an actual Warp Drive - bending space/time to travel at the speed of light. I started a thread about it here:
Warp Drive. I wanted to bump this thread about aliens too, because if we can actually create Warp Drive in the near future, perhaps exploring distant planets and universes will be much closer than we actually think. Maybe not something 'hundreds of years from now', but maybe something we can observe in our lifetimes.