&gt; Intelligent life also happened in our solar system, but you seem to consider it unlikely elsewhere.<p>Occam&#x27;s razor, plain and simple.<p>If the strange variations in that star&#x27;s brightness turned out to be caused by an alien civilization, that would be way, way cool. But before we jump to conclusions, we should explore more mundane explanations; given the unusual observations, it should still be very interesting, whatever the cause.