That's some rather motivated sounding reasoning. If it's so common, why is it only this one star where we see the pattern? The point is, it's rare and the effe

That's some rather motivated sounding reasoning. If it's so common, why is it only this one star where we see the pattern? The point is, it's rare and the effect would be short lived. Also, I don't think just any passing star would produce the effect they're talking about. They mentioned the star being significantly dimmed by matter that must be very close. A star passing through the Oort cloud wouldn't have done that, it would throw a few (maybe thousands?) comets closer in, but not into a tight orbit around the sun. I don't think you're really giving enough credit to how rare this scenario is.