It’s more that media have a lot a time to kill between scandals and elections:
For the first time, a fast radio burst (FRB) has been detected emitting in a pattern – a 16-day cycle, with four days of intermittent bursts and 12 days of silence.
We still don’t know what causes these extremely powerful, millisecond blasts of radio waves from up to billions of light-years away. Most of them haven’t been detected repeating, most of them are wildly unpredictable, and only five out of over 100 have been traced to a source galaxy.
It’s proven extremely tricky to find a cosmic phenomenon that fits the profile of FRBs.
Michelle Starr, “The Repeating Signals From Deep Space Are Extremely Unlikely to Be Aliens. Here’s Why” at ScienceAlert
But magnetars are pretty close. For one thing, as Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)’s Seth Shostak points out, the bursts are from widely varying locations, which is unlikely unless the aliens inhabited the whole universe.
See also: Tales of Oumuamua: Why are we still talking about the Oumuamua alien sighting panic? Oumuamua alien sighting panic?
What? Oumuamua Was Just A Comet? After All The ET Hype?
Astronomer: We’re too dumb to think space object Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial lightsail.Hmmm. In the real world, when you are an only child so far as you know, it is hard to compare yourself to your siblings. Few readily accept criticism for failure to measure up to the standards of imaginary beings.
Conventional Non-ET Explanations For Oumuamua
Astronomers: Solar System Object In Transit, Oumuamua, Might Be A “Light Sail Of Extra-Terrestrial Origin”
Why Some Scientists Saw Asteroid Oumuamua As ET
Why can top scientists get away with extraordinary claims?
Did Interstellar Object Oumuamua Normalize Space Aliens As Science In 2018?
Astronomers: Solar system object in transit, Oumuamua, might be a “light sail of extra-terrestrial origin”
and
Tales of an invented god