Perhaps whats going on is they have been measuring their own collective prior probability that these particles exist. This is what would happen if you set your

Perhaps whats going on is they have been measuring their own collective prior probability that these particles exist. This is what would happen if you set your null model to be something that was false regardless of these particles existing. The way it works is more belief -> more effort put towards detection. It requires a certain amount of time and funding to cross the "discovery" threshold so this will only happen if there is enough prior belief.