"Steve O" <stoboyle@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:3hjgliFhdj2aU1@individual.net...

<snip>

What if some aliens
are a billion years ahead of us?

Unlikely.
If the universe has been around for about 14 billion years, give or take a 
billion or two, and it took intelligent life on this planet around 14 
billion years to get where it is today, it's unlikely that there are any 
aliens billions of years ahead of us.
Not enough time.

Although we don't know for sure either way, saying that it's unlikely for an 
alien species to be 1 billion years ahead of us because, "...it took 
intelligent life on this planet around 14 billion years to get where it is 
today..." is incorrect in principle.  It took us 14 billion years to "get 
where we are today" because our sun didn't even FORM until 4.5 billion years 
ago.  In effect, it only took us 4.5 billion years, give or take.  Since 
stars have been forming constantly for the past 12-15 billion years 
(depending on whom you ask), if an intelligent alien race popped up around a 
star that formed a MERE 6 billion years ago, they could very well be 1 
billion years ahead of us technologically and culturally (and several 
billion years farther along than that if you concede that their star formed 
perhaps 9 or 10 billion years ago).
The point is, there has been PLENTY of time for SEVERAL intelligent species 
to develop, each one a billion-or-so years more advanced than the previous 
one.

Matty-o