The article dismisses natural explanations as &quot;wanting&quot;, but then goes on to dedicate half the article to aliens?<p>It claims that another star having a close encounter with KIC 8462852 (the star discussed in the article) and stirring up its comet cloud &quot;would be an extraordinary coincidence&quot;. There is, in fact, evidence that such an encounter happened in our own solar system, &quot;only a few millennia before humans developed the tech to loft a telescope into space.&quot; Calculating the speed and trajectory of a particular star, astronomers found that it would have crossed within the radius of the Oort Cloud approximately 70,000 years ago, producing exactly the scenario that &quot;would be an extraordinary coincidence.&quot;[1]<p>Additionally, astronomers have checked stars in the galaxy for the possibility of a close encounter with our solar system, and find dozens of such candidates to come close to our solar system, sometimes within the radius of the Oort cloud, within the next million years (some as close as 240,000-470,000 years from now).[2]<p>The idea that a passing star would stir up the comet cloud of KIC 8462852 should not be dismissed as a coincidence, especially not to give leeway to discuss the potential for intelligence to build megastructures, when we see that such a coincidence is not even that rare for our own solar system.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;iopscience.iop.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1088&#x2F;2041-8205&#x2F;800&#x2F;1&#x2F;L17&#x2F;meta;jsessionid=6790524B4362615599182851A33352EC.c1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;iopscience.iop.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1088&#x2F;2041-8205&#x2F;800&#x2F;1&#x2F;L1...</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mpia.de&#x2F;~calj&#x2F;stellar_encounters&#x2F;stellar_encounters_1.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mpia.de&#x2F;~calj&#x2F;stellar_encounters&#x2F;stellar_encounte...</a>