"in a jetpack" is just a colloquial way of saying "wearing a jetpack". other examples of this type of language include:

"Do you see that man in the suit over there?"

"the suspect in body armor was described as being 6 feet tall."

"man in an orange shirt" is the title of a popular pbs show.

etc etc etc.

Airline pilots typically earn their 1500-hour minimum for their license in "small but conventional aircraft" so the odds of them mistaking one for a jetpack is approximately zero.

And I probably have 5000+ hours driving cars. That doesn't mean I don't occasionally confuse one type of road vehicle for another, especially when dealing with odd/rare types.

"There's a guy on rollerskates doing 85 on the freeway... oh my bad, it's actually a Ford Fiesta."

You often confuse motorcycles for cars?

At night, sure. Many times I've met a car with a broken headlight, only realizing it's not a motorcycle as we're passing. I don't know if this happened at night, but visibility can be reduced for other reasons as well.

This one is scary to me, as a motorcycle rider. The other one that’s not fun: some motorcycles have two separate headlights on the front (low and high beams) and can be wired so that both can be on at once. What are you looking at? A car that’s really far away or a motorcycle that’s really close?

Please watch out for motorcyclists. The blindness people have for us is astonishing. And terrifying.

I've had that on a bicycle. The bike had two small side by side halogens on the handlebars, I was on a main road when a car pulled straight out of a side turning and into the side of me. I released afterwards he'd glanced down the road, seen two small lights and assumed it was a car far enough away for him to pull out.

On motorbikes I've had drivers in side roads look me in the eye and then pull out. On occasion I've ended up having words, and it's always "Sorry mate I didn't see you".

>it's always "Sorry mate I didn't see you".

Ah, the SMIDSY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU&t=387s

That video covers the optical illusion that leads to it and what motorcycles can do.

Well yeah, when you remove 99% of the visual information it can be hard to tell if it's a motorcycle.

In those cases were you certain what you saw was a motorcycle before realizing otherwise? Or did you wait until you passed to be sure?

I do. Those 3 wheel cars/bikes in California...

Would they confuse two particular models of twin-engine piston Cessna? Maybe (but still, probably not).

Will they confuse a seaplane for a blimp? No.

Or report a weather balloon as a UFO? Or see a plastic bag and report it as a drone? Or try to land on the taxiway thinking it is a runway? Such mistakes happen regularly. Given the lack of photography in this case, I lean towards misidentification rather than a rocketman on approach to LAX.

There’s at least one video out there of a ‘flying inflatable doll’ attached to a drone. Could be something like that...

At this point, this feels like the most correct speculation.

Yeah, that's plausible too.