Photo via NASA Godard Space Flight Center Flickr
Read: A Brief History of Scientists Searching for Extraterrestrial LifeIn October of this year, Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State, told The Atlantic that the unusual Kepler data patterns registered for a star called KIC 8462852—which had previously been described by scientists as "bizarre" and curious"—could be attributed to a "swarm of megastructures." As for the architects behind these megastructures? Aliens, probably.To test out this hypothesis, SETI International, a research organization dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, devoted six consecutive nights at the Optical SETI Observatory in Boquete, Panama, to searching for electromagnetic signals that could trace back to alien megastructures.Sadly for those of us who really want to meet aliens, the results from the experiment seemed to rule out any possibility of extraterrestrial interference. According to a recently published paper, nothing that would support the existence of an "alien megastructure" was found during the experiment.Further shattering our hopes, SETI International's president Douglas Vakoch said in a press release, "The hypothesis of an alien megastructure around KIC 8462852 is rapidly crumbling apart. We found no evidence of an advanced civilization beaming intentional laser signals toward Earth."Follow Michael Cuby on Twitter.