Anecdotal obviously but I’m in the industry (I’m assuming you are as well from the nature of your comment) and I work with many current and former pilots and I think this characterization is a little unfair. Many military pilots do come from engineering backgrounds since a degree is generally a requirement for pilot training, and an engineering degree is often viewed as a good qualifier for becoming a pilot. Military pilot training is also highly technical in nature and involves rigorous classroom learning on the underlying physics and systems of tactical aircraft. But aside from this, my experience is that technically competent (not necessarily a given) pilots can have a better practical understanding of these sensor systems than the engineers that designed them because the designers very rarely get a comprehensive picture about what it’s actually like to use them in combat scenarios, simulated or otherwise. The problem in my mind with simply writing off the TICTAC and GIMBLE incidents as a bad reading of noise on the scope is that, from multiple pilot testimonies, dozens of tracks were observed via radar, ir/eo, and visually (like just the eyeballs). I’m not saying that these are craft that are violating the known laws of physics, I personally have other theories, but I’m not sure it’s just noisy sensors either.