People see what they want to see sometimes during high stress situations. Some actually go into a dream like state of shock where their mind plays all kinds of tricks.
Probably a defense mechanism.
Ya, sure. Thats why there are so many extensive reports of Santa, velociraptors, and the Pillsbury dough boy as shooters....wait, no, just ninjas that are never found. Multiple shootings now were reported as multiple shooter with at least one ninja but only a single non-ninja shlub with apparently no training gets tagged. Eye witnesses are unreliable and do make mistakes about the color of jacket or make of car or something, they dont and wouldnt all invent ninjas and certainly nots squads of them.