[MarkMarine]

I can confirm for anyone interested that pilots, Navy or otherwise, can also be cranks. They lie, misinterpret, and make mistakes at the same rate as the rest of the population. There is no special moral code issued to you in flight school.

I've seen pilots with their head down in the targeting system saying some really really silly things that were obviously wrong when they got their eyes up and got some SA.

[carabiner]

Yeah pilots can totally be wrong. I was once an engineer in flight test, and pilots are your endusers and can speculate all sorts of weird stuff. They are not engineers. That said, in this particular case, the fact that the pilots admitted to joking around / pranks in the past adds credibility. If they were dishonest, they would have tried to conceal this in their past.