Like most newspaper and magazine articles about technical subjects,
the Der Stern piece inserted fiction for fact.
IR imaging systems can detect where vehicles (cars, trucks, tanks,
airplanes) were parked earlier but have since been moved. They do
this because the pavement where the vehicle used to be has not yet
come into thermal equilibrium with the surrounding pavement.
No imaging system at any wavelength can image a target that is no
longer there.
In an earlier life, I spent 20 years developing and operating
satellite imaging systems -- visible, IR, and radar.