I don't see how any of this proves there cannot be pilots who are accurate in their descriptions and see stuff that eludes our current known categories.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think that pilots/ other aircrew might be able to give accurate descriptions of a previously unknown/ undescribed type of flying/ airborne object. Must have happened quite a few times in WW2, maybe a few times since, where the reported sighting of a new type of foreign aircraft was later confirmed beyond doubt.
In principle, this might apply to a hypothetical alien craft or some other visible exotic phenomena.
But there is no convincing testable evidence for the presence of alien spacecraft visiting Earth (or, at present, alien life of any sort anywhere) or for any sort of phenomenon which, seen clearly, might reasonably be mistaken as alien spacecraft visiting Earth (or something similarly exotic).
There is irrefutable evidence that just like other people, pilots sometimes make misidentifications or errors of judgement.
Unlike first sightings of foreign aircraft, no sightings of UFOs by pilots have ever later been confirmed to be anything exotic*; this is true of all UFO cases.
I'd guess most combat jets, maritime patrol aircraft, attack helicopters etc. carry cameras of some description, but we haven't seen much evidence from these (exceptions include FLIR-1, GIMBAL, discussed elsewhere). This might indicate that either reported sightings by aircrew are fleeting, or not supported by photographic evidence gathered at the time, in which case we hear no more about them: we don't get to see evidence of aircrew UFO sightings that are shown to be mistaken, evidence that aircrew can be prone to misidentifications/ perceptual errors/ over-interpretation just like everyone else.
I don't think there's anything wrong with
@Fritzkquzerk's proposal, that aircrew might be able to accurately describe something novel that they encounter. But there's very little evidence that there
are exotic craft/ strange phenomena that might be mistaken for exotic craft for aircrew to describe. Anecdotal accounts remain anecdotal accounts, no matter who they're from.
*U-2 pilot Ronald Williams might have observed a meteorological sprite in 1973, 16 years before their existence was demonstrated beyond doubt. But this wasn't a UFO report- and sprites
were shown to exist within 16 years, and have been photographed and filmed thousands of times since (
post #79, When Ball Lightning Isn't Ball Lightning thread). We're 79 years on from Kenneth Arnold's sighting, 78 from Mantell, 74 from (very ambiguous) sightings by F-94 pilots during the "Washington invasion", 50 years from Iranian F-4s pursuing a UFO, 22 years from FLIR-1 and Tic Tac, 11 years from GIMBAL. But we still have no real evidence of extraterrestrial life or artefacts of any sort.
UFOs have been visible from, but just beyond the reach of, P-51s, F-94s, F-4s, F/A-18s (and often their cameras).
In terms of non-ET explanations for UFOs, we're also 26 years on from the UK's frankly awful Project Condign report, which mentioned reports from aircrew ("Unexpected Encounters by Aircraft" and elsewhere), Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Condign) and its light-bending "Buoyant Plasma Formations". It was conducted by the section of DI55 that was responsible for the MoD's "UFO desk" up to that time, but perhaps not coincidentally not for long after. The report assumed that the Belgian black triangles were accurate-ish reports, and came up with what might be considered a pseudoscientific explanation. On page 1 it has a prominent photo of a Belgian triangle, labelled
External Quote:
An example UAP formation of the triangle type
...it's the hoax photo admitted to by Patrick Maréchal in 2011, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave. Some Condign pages, including the photo, are viewable via Internet Archive here
https://dn760105.eu.archive.org/0/items/condign-vol-2-1-258/uap_vol1_pgs1to13_ch1_text.pdf
