he data checks out.

When the Kepler telescope detected the huge light dips

from KIC 8462852, nothing was wonky in the telescope, and there's nothing
particularly odd about any of the other data it collected at the same time.

kepler telescope

Artist illustration, NASA / Wendy Stenzel

Between 2009 and 2013, the Kepler space telescope stared at a single patch
of the sky, searching for exoplanets. Around the star KIC 8462852, it appears
to have spotted something much stranger.

It's not possible that the telescope pixels that imaged Boyajian's Star were
faulty, because the star's image wasn't always on the same pixels. As the
star moved throughout the month, and as the telescope shifted positions,
different detectors monitored Boyajian's Star, and they all showed that the
star was acting bizarre. "The dips are real," writes Wright.

For a few months, scientists argued about whether the star has been getting
dimmer over the past century. Those observations were based on old and
imprecise astronomy data. But a new analysis indicates the star dimmed
significantly over the four years that the Kepler telescope watched it, and
therefore probably over the past century as well.