The bit I found most interesting: "The current excitement could easily be a false alarm. Even if LIGO has a promising signal, it may be a false test signal pla

The bit I found most interesting: "The current excitement could easily be a false alarm. Even if LIGO has a promising signal, it may be a false test signal planted as a drill. It's been done before, in 2010 near the end of LIGO's last pre-upgrade run. Three members of the LIGO team are empowered to move the mirrored blocks by just the right traces in just the right way. Only they know the truth, and the test protocol is that they not reveal a planted signal until the collaboration has finished analyzing it and is ready to publish a paper and hold a press conference. “Blind tests” like this are the gold standard in all branches of science." Getting to the point of publishing a paper and holding a press conference seems like a lot of potentially wasted effort on a fire-drill type exercise. Presumably there are reasons why they wouldn't just let everyone know that it was a drill when they'd all decided on a conclusion? I realise that I'm assuming that the point of drawing that conclusion is much earlier than completing the paper as well, which may not be true.