Jim Cash is a retired brigadier general U.S. Air Force. A former NORAD command director, former assistant director of operations at NORAD, a U.S.A.F. pilot of F-106s, F-4s, F-15s and F-16s for 25 years and the commander of an F-15 Squadron and an F-16 Wing.
If this guy's judgment is in question we'd better find out who's in charge of NORAD today.
Yes, I suppose being stationed inside a mountain, or flying fast jets, does make one an expert on identifying "definite" missile launches based on a few seconds of highly-zoomed video.
It's hooey. There are a lot of folks who for some reason really want this to have been a missile. The easy, correct answer isn't good enough for them.