aside from all the jokes here, what would be some alternative theories that this “anomaly” suggests?
Obviously that the Big Bang is not as homogenous as theorized. The “dark flow” discovered in recent years, for example. Overall measurement of the red shift shows a large portion of the universe is moving or being pulled toward another part of it, possibly a gravitational source. In other words, there is growing evidence for unexpected amounts of “clumpiness” in the universe that the standard model doesn’t predict. Our own galaxy is also being pulled at 600 kps toward what’s called the “Great Attractor” in approximately the same direction.
There are no real alternative theories of yet since for now they are just speculation with no supporting evidence. It could be that multiple Big Bangs are occurring, not just one. The “brane concept” is an interesting off-shoot of M-theory, but that’s still just speculation. In that, the universe is a collision beteween two multi-dimensional “branes” (short for “membranes”) in a greater 12-dimensional universe. That theory explains not only dark matter, but unexpected clumpiness as a result of gravitational forces from one universe affecting another. But who can say? Our ability to even test these ideas is maybe thousands of years behind the technology to do so.
One thing it suggests is that 'inflation' was something cobbled together to try to shoehorn current theories into something somewhat closer to reality.
Inflation has always seemed like so much hand-waving to me.