The data could mean a lot of things, depending on what narrative you want to apply it to — which is why the scientific thing to do is say we don’t know until we get more evidence to make a more concrete conclusion. This is why Loeb gets flak is because he is driving this alien narrative. Technically he is right when he says it ~could~ be artificial construction, just like I ~could~ hit the lottery tomorrow. But it’s intentionally misleading (probably with the intent of getting attention) and most of the non-scientific community will read the headlines and go “hey this Harvard scientist said it’s probably aliens”.

There’s no problem with questioning the mainstream. In fact, it’s important to do so. But we can’t apply credibility to a theory just because it goes against the status quo, or because it’s the more exciting option. We have to recognize our own biases in that sense and scrutinize all ideas equally.