You are NOT looking at ATC RADAR!!
If you really want to know ...we use several ASR type RADAR systems at various facilities. At DFW I have 4 ASR 9 terminal RADAR systems for our Controllers to choose from. They DO BOTH Primary and Secondary RADAR returns.
NO, I understand what you are saying now, and I said earlier that I wasn't experienced enough to judge what people are seeing on this display.
I was responding in part to Rokke's comment, "I guess it really doesn't matter if you ignore the fact that the radar can only "track" transponders and therefore, if it was "tracking" something real, whatever it was, was squawking an IFF code."
Radar can surely track passive objects as well as transponders. Transponders make things brighter and easier to track, but they are mainly used for purposes of identification. Perhaps the original ATC radar and the display people are looking at are two different things, but that's not entirely evident from what is being said here.
Anyway, I'm headed for bed.