You pretty much explained it yourself. The price of SPLK had no reason to jump to or beyond $127 without some catalyst event so the options were almost worthle

You pretty much explained it yourself. The price of SPLK had no reason to jump to or beyond $127 without some catalyst event so the options were almost worthless. But with the acquisition, the stock had a catalyst and with the share price jumping to $145, those options gained a crap load of intrinsic value (basically the difference of $145 - $127). Now either the purchaser got really really lucky or had insider information that the acquisition was going to happen. The latter seems much more likely.