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Same here. Something about that curve says, "Doppler" to me.

Been trying to envision a signal emitted from the bottom of a deep shaft -- on a spherical object that is (very) rapidly "tumbling" on multiple axes. On most passes, (except perfectly on-axis) it seems to me that even a linear signal would have some circular doppler distortion in frequency...

But, that would seem to be more "natural" than "designed".

What blows my mind is the sheer power of the beast! Even with inverse square attenuation over millions of light years of distance, that is a "bright" signal... (That, of course, assumes that the astrofolks got their source correctly identified...)

With regard to power, one of the videos on FRBs states that the estimated energy in one pulse is 10^30 joules, which would make them basically the brightest objects in the universe. That's assuming the radiation pattern is isotropic, which certainly doesn't have to be the case. The class of objects knows as "quasars" were originally thought to be the brightest objects in the universe, but (I believe) that was later shown to be probably false; quasars are now thought to be beam phenomena that happened to be aimed directly at us.

In the video I link in this story, one of the professors talks about a theory that the FRBs result from a magnetic field phenomenon that may take place on magnetars, sort of an ultra-powerful magnetic star-quake, analog of a phenomenon that's been observed in solar storms on our own Sun.

I don't think the "deep shaft" theory is necessary to get such a powerful pulsing effect. You could also have two super-massive objects orbiting around a common center of mass; one of them functions — by means of its gravitational field — to focus the emissions of the other into a highly focused beam.

The frequency-sweep phenomenon is very interesting because it's fairly hard to produce in nature. To see it at such stupendous power levels and sweep rates is highly thought-provoking, and explains why this phenomenon is getting so much attention.