Comment by foxglacier

It's a triumph of humanity over rational thought. Imagining intelligent beings is a core part of being human. We do it with gods, ghosts, monsters, etc. It's exciting and it's kind of a major reason we're exploring space to begin with. If you want pure rationality, might as well kill all astronomy research because what's the point? We do it because it's exciting to discover things, not for any practical purpose.