> As far as I know it has been purely layperson speculation
Well... almost.
It was originally suggested (as a highly unlikely but testable hypothesis) by astronomer Jason Wright. Then the press completely distorted his original point beyond recognition.
Methods for using Kepler data to identify artificial megastructures is the subject of research by several astronomers, including Luc Arnold (French National Centre for Scientific Research), Jason Wright (Penn State), and Geoff Marcy (UC Berkeley).
Luc Arnold wrote a paper arguing that swarms of artificial structures would have certain unusual signature variations in their light curves. Jason Wright later pointed out that KIC 12557548 had similar predicted variations.
"Now, I don’t know what this is. Maybe it really is an evaporating planet (the best guess, I’d say). ... I’d bet my house on it not being aliens. But given that he went way out on a limb and predicted almost exactly this sort of thing, don’t you think Luc Arnold at least deserved a citation?"
This line, "I'd bet my house on it not being aliens," somehow got picked up by the media as "Astronomers have found super-advanced aliens," because that's how the press works.
So is it all lay speculation? Well, if you just mean credible astronomers aren't seriously arguing for this as a likely possibility, then yes. But if you mean there's no testable way to analyze Kepler data to distinguish between artificial and natural satellites... well... work in progress.
Well... almost.
It was originally suggested (as a highly unlikely but testable hypothesis) by astronomer Jason Wright. Then the press completely distorted his original point beyond recognition.
Methods for using Kepler data to identify artificial megastructures is the subject of research by several astronomers, including Luc Arnold (French National Centre for Scientific Research), Jason Wright (Penn State), and Geoff Marcy (UC Berkeley).
Here's a representative paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503580
Luc Arnold wrote a paper arguing that swarms of artificial structures would have certain unusual signature variations in their light curves. Jason Wright later pointed out that KIC 12557548 had similar predicted variations.
"Now, I don’t know what this is. Maybe it really is an evaporating planet (the best guess, I’d say). ... I’d bet my house on it not being aliens. But given that he went way out on a limb and predicted almost exactly this sort of thing, don’t you think Luc Arnold at least deserved a citation?"
This line, "I'd bet my house on it not being aliens," somehow got picked up by the media as "Astronomers have found super-advanced aliens," because that's how the press works.
So is it all lay speculation? Well, if you just mean credible astronomers aren't seriously arguing for this as a likely possibility, then yes. But if you mean there's no testable way to analyze Kepler data to distinguish between artificial and natural satellites... well... work in progress.
http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2013/03/09/artifact-seti/