The article suggests that "Some suggest that these flashes could be messages from alien civilizations possessing technology far more advanced than ours." but th

The article suggests that "Some suggest that these flashes could be messages from alien civilizations possessing technology far more advanced than ours." but that is a pretty fringe view among astronomers. FRBs are broadband signals with an incredible amount of energy. For intentionally sending a signal, narrowband signals are far more efficient. It's hard to imagine why an alien civilization would send a signal this way. It's like the difference between a forest fire and a laser. When you see a huge blobby irregular burst of energy from far away, it's a "forest fire", it's something natural, not an intentional signal. In the cases we understand well, these huge bursts of unfocused energy are generally caused by large-scale astronomical events, like black holes smashing into each other or a neutron star spinning around. So even though we don't understand the specific mechanism behind these FRBs, it's much more likely to be something like that than an alien signal.