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Could a naturally occurring large gas and dust cloud be a source of such a disappearance?

It would not even need to be extremely large. All it would have to do is lie somewhere between earth and the patch of space in question. The closer to earth, the smaller the patch would need to be. The stars would not disappear so much as have the view of them obstructed. Of course, if that is the case, then perhaps a search to detect such clouds would be in order

caltrek wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 4:56 pm Could a naturally occurring large gas and dust cloud be a source of such a disappearance?

I don't think so because then at the same time we should observe a similar number of "reappearing" stars that were covered with dust clouds 70 years ago that are now visible (which AFAIK wasn't observed)

Yes I don't think interstellar clouds would work. If you have several observations, the clouds should have moved.

For Tabby's star, which I wrote about recently here: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2037 ,astronomers concluded that it's fine dust in orbit around the star which dims the light. I think astronomers are too fast in coming up with "natural" explanations and then moving on.
In case of Tabby's star, the dust should be blown away by the star, so there need to be a source for the dust. What kind of source would that be?

The dust around Tabby's star dims the light up to 20%, so this explanation is not valid for the vanishing stars. It doesn't seem plausible to have enormous dust clouds in orbit, which shouldn't be stable in the first place.

andmar74 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:56 pm "Dark forest theory": Alien hunters are out there lurking.
Why would they take out the stars? Much easier to destroy life on planets.

If there are hostile aliens in space, we are just sitting ducks. But since life on earth seems untouched for billions of years, we might be safe.
I did write a piece about Berserkers in this forum, so maybe not completely safe

Because a multiplanetary civilization, or one with space habitats, could survive a planetary attack and retaliate. Blowing up a star would kill anyone in the entire solar system with no chance of retaliation unless they have faster than light sensors. Which would undermine the dark forest in the first place. Even the original dark forest hunters targeted stars, not planets, with their photoids.