First discovered in 2009 by the Kepler Telescope, the star in question is located around 1,480 light years from Earth, and has been of interest to scientists for the last 6 years.

The star emits a light pattern which resembles a star with an orbiting planet around it, however the pattern in this stars case, is unlike anything scientists have encountered previously. It is indicative of a large, tightly packed, dense sort of matter, which is something usually expected of a young star – this star however, is not young at all.

The discovery has scientists asking what the anomalous mass could be, and why it has not disappeared yet.

The discovery has been noted as so unusual that some scientists have actually put forward the theory that we might be seeing a massive, gigantic structure built by an alien civilisation. It has been previously mentioned by SETI that evidence of extraterrestrial life among the stars might be discovered by finding large artificial structures created by advanced extraterrestrial civilisations.

“When [I was shown] the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” he said. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build.”

Could this be the first hard, long distance evidence of an extraterrestrial civilisation?