I've completely missed the boat (heh); what is "Navy-UFO conspiracy"? Because at least one interpretation of that combination of words is entirely level-headed (UFOs as Naval materiel, e.g. penaids and their friends, electro-optical EW missile-countermeasure systems), while the other, not so much.
As Neil Degrasse Tyson once said, even pilots aren't astronomers or astrophysicists and often don't know what they're seeing when they look at the sky.
As I understand it, in at least some of these instances the pilots were looking down at the ground when they claim to have seen objects beneath them. /nitpick
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't astronomy the scientific study of celestial objects; and astrophysics is the branch of astronomy concerned with the physical nature of those celestial objects.
Why would either of those be the right consultants for UFOs, which are decidedly not celestial objects.
Sure, but the universe has a lot of very strange natural phenomena and astrophysicist spend a lot of time studying these and therefore can recognise when something is likely natural (or at least have the background knowledge to check before assuming its aliens -- as they say, its never aliens, until it is) where a fighter pilot might be more attuned to seeing things in the sky than the average person, they still don't have the same exposure and experience seeing, studying and working with strange sky and space phenomena. I'd rather an astrophysicist's opinion on aliens than a fighter pilot's, but I'd rather a fighter pilot's opinion than my local plumber.
Because they are used to looking at the sky and looking at weird, odd or abnormal phenomena in the sky. They are therefore better equipped to know whether something strange in the sky is just one of the many strange natural phenomena or if its something that might be of alien origin.
I agree, should probably have been meteorologists. Most astronomers and astrophysicians aren't that much more educated on weird atmospheric phenomena, either.
