Just so you know I’m not crazy. It’s definitely not the crawl, but as it flashes by it really looks like it.
And yeah I’m a bit embarrassed by missing my first guess (and not even getting the name of it right). My dad would be disappointed.
Maybe it’s just a Rorschach test sort of thing? Unless Paul Verhoven is a closet Star Wars fan.
Back in my college tv production days, I would shoot static by aiming a video camera at a tv set, tuned to an off channel from what the VCR’s RF output was set for. I was able to get images like that. They probably did something similar for Robocop.