If there was a known similar particle (this “tehcni-Higgs” particle) why wasn’t that ruled out before publication of any findings?
I think I wound up having to edit it out of the excerpt, but the Higgs was predicted (actually needed, it’s a mathematical kludge) by the Standard Model; so were massless neutrinos. Since the late 1960s several longterm experiments were set up to detect neutrinos, and failed to turn up any (for all practical purposes; the level of apparent hits was the kind of background level one would expect to find in interstellar space). Since the Sun is quite close by, we should be awash in them.
Then about ten years ago, a really purpose-built experiment was begun. It appeared to find neutrinos. Unfortunately the detected whatevers had mass.
Soooo, it was decided that neutrinos had been found after all, but that they changed from massless to massful while making the trip from the Sun. Standard Model was upheld.