Why were you side-eyeing LIGO? Gravitational waves were a prediction of an extremely well tested theory, and all that was needed was to engineer an instrument sensitive enough to see them.
The Hulse and Taylor results seemed pretty conclusive for gravitational waves.
LIGO: I have some experience in optics. The thought of an interferometer detecting a displacement of a small fraction of a proton in the presence of all that noise was way, way out there. They'd also been working at it for decades with null result after null result. It was like fusion, always around the corner.
And then it worked handing all of us doubters a nice cup of STFU.
