Mega structure found

[zebo-the-fat]

Interesting, needs a lot more investigation.... but what if??

[Fake Messiah]

Sure it could have positive effect on humanity to see that someone out there has this cool hardware, something like Matthew C. Perry once had on Nippon civilization. Maybe whole humanity would turn more to science development.

[brewer]

They'll never take us alive.

Which is convenient because they probably don't want to...

If they have the capability to make a jump here to visit us i doubt any alien race would want to visit us.

Maybe for food and resources. I'll bet I cook up kind of tough and stringy though. Edible in a pinch.

[paulpablo]

I have a heavy dose of scepticism on the "alien structure" statements.

Very interesting, though.

This could be a case of me just being a cold hard pessimistic bastard, but to me it seems like a they're inserting aliens into this subject as a way to get attention or maybe funding or both.

This is what one astronomer said

"Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build," Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University in the US, told The Atlantic.

This is what another astronomer says about what was actually found

"Straight away, we know we’re not dealing with a planet here. Even a Jupiter-sized planet only blocks roughly 1 percent of this kind of star’s light, and that’s about as big as a planet gets. It can’t be due to a star, either; we’d see it if it were. And the lack of a regular, repeating signal belies both of these as well. Whatever is blocking the star is big, though, up to half the width of the star itself!"

So I don't see how this could "look" like something an alien civilisation would build.  First of all it doesn't "look" like anything, it's just a blockage of light bigger than what was initially expected.  Nowhere in any of the articles does it say anything beyond that, there's no blockage of light in the shape of anything, nothing was actually seen, it was just a reading of a measurement of light that was blocked, and it was bigger than expected.

Secondly (I'm no expert on astronomy or aliens so please correct me if you can point out a logical flaw in this logic) surely the bigger something is, the more likely it is to be natural and not made by a creature of intelligence.

The biggest objects human being create are a barely visible on earth from space, compare that to an object that sometimes blocks out "up to half of the width of the star itself"  The article even says  

 Even a Jupiter-sized planet only blocks roughly 1 percent of this kind of star’s light, and that’s about as big as a planet gets.

 
This quote from an astronomer on the article seems to be equating light blockage with size, I don't exactly know how that works but assuming it does work in the way he's suggesting then this would mean they're comparing something that blocks out 1% of light from the star (the largest type of planet we know of) with something that blocks out "up to half of the width of the star itself" 50% of light from the star.

This would mean the aliens are building an object at least 50 times bigger than the planet they live on. Or at least something that blocks out 50 times more light than the planet they live on.

Anyway to cut along story short, it seems to me they're basically making a boring story interesting by adding aliens. 
It worked on me, I wouldn't have bothered to look at an article that said "light blockage from star bigger than expected"

But "Light blockage from star, possibly an alien civilization"  Yeh I'll definitely read that.

[Edwardo Piet]

Either just a bunch of rock or an actual alien structure?

I'll go with the former for the time being.

[vorlon13]

Going serious for a moment, I find the 'comet' explanation extremely implausible.

On the plus side, this star is brighter than 12 magnitude which makes it easy to study, even backyard telescopes can be used. Additionally, since it is sufficiently bright, there are probably going to be observations of it already recorded that can be studied.

[ReptilianPeon]

And when we find out none of these aliens share the same religion as any humans? That will be fun! Hopefully Stephen Hawking is wrong and humanity won't suffer the same way the Native Americans did.

[JesusHChrist]

Maybe for food and resources. I'll bet I cook up kind of tough and stringy though. Edible in a pinch.

Christians - saccharine, sickly sweet. Hits the alien's sweet-tooth spot.
Hindus and Thais - very spicy.
Atheists - tough, bitter, stringy. Slow cooking required to remove the devil-poison.

[IATIA]

I have seen a few posts entertaining the alien interpretation. According to the article, Jupiter would be too small. Now, regardless of the advancement of this 'alien race', where would one get enough raw material to build something significantly larger than Jupiter?

I stand by my original hypothesis that it is just a rogue asteroid field between us and this system. Covering 22% of the star has little to do with size and everything to do with perspective. I can cover 100% of the star with my pinkie.

[IATIA]

Maybe for food and resources. I'll bet I cook up kind of tough and stringy though. Edible in a pinch.

Christians - saccharine, sickly sweet. Hits the alien's sweet-tooth spot.
Hindus and Thais - very spicy.
Atheists - tough, bitter, stringy. Slow cooking required to remove the devil-poison.

"How to Serve Man"