I think your scale is off a bit. I'm not sure what "these far off galaxies" refers to, but according to this Wikipedia page:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies

all the local group galaxies are within 10 million light years of Earth.

For that matter, some of the "life is everywhere" theories assume many space-faring civilizations within our own Milky Way galaxy, which is only(!) about 100,000 light years across.