Google On Phantom Noindex Errors In Search Console

Google's John Mueller's response on phantom noindex errors in Search Console acknowledges indexing blocks visible to Google.

A noindex robots directive is one of the few commands that Google must obey, one of the few ways that a site owner can exercise control over Googlebot, Google’s indexer.

And yet it’s not totally uncommon for search console to report being unable to index a page because of a noindex directive that seemingly does not have a noindex directive on it, at least none that is visible in the HTML code.
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