That&#x27;s some rather motivated sounding reasoning. If it&#x27;s so common, why is it only this one star where we see the pattern? 
The point is, it&#x27;s rare and the effect would be short lived.<p>Also, I don&#x27;t think just any passing star would produce the effect they&#x27;re talking about. They mentioned the star being significantly dimmed by matter that must be very close. A star passing through the Oort cloud wouldn&#x27;t have done that, it would throw a few (maybe thousands?) comets closer in, but not into a tight orbit around the sun.<p>I don&#x27;t think you&#x27;re really giving enough credit to how rare this scenario is.