It has been possible to detect operations before they occur through clever analysis of open source data. The US military became aware of this many years ago and has spent a lot of time studying this type of exploitation.
The US pays people to search for and red-team their real non-public operations using OSINT. It helps the US understand how exposed they are, how to effectively hide in the OSINT environment, and how to manipulate OSINT to misdirect adversaries sifting through the same data.
Possibly referring to the fact they sent half the stealth bomber fleet to the Philippines, while the other half was actually performing the strike straight from the US.
The operation efforts of distraction are very very real however what has never ceased to amaze me about the U.S. governments lack of "intelligence" is why they do not take the same approach in hiding the gas stations in the sky. Some here may have seen this distraction as it occurred and given enough exposure to said data, aka experience, when an event occurs it certainly stands out as an obvious data pattern anomaly against what is normal. The old magicians trick of distraction however some here are old and wise enough to know the elephant did not disappear. ADSB data is an amazing thing and the fact the the U.S. government pays to keep in suppressed should be an indicator towards its revealing power. What you cannot see matters most and the world is coming to learn this with each passing day.
I think people would be surprised by the extent to which scientific sensing and commercial data sources are systematically scrubbed of data that has specific intelligence value.
This is much less effective these days due to the pervasiveness of network connected sensor data but it is still commonplace.
The US pays people to search for and red-team their real non-public operations using OSINT. It helps the US understand how exposed they are, how to effectively hide in the OSINT environment, and how to manipulate OSINT to misdirect adversaries sifting through the same data.