'Somehow Palpatine Returned' has become a meme in itself just because people find it shows how little thought and effort was put into bringing him back, they can't say how he came back, since he was never supposed to. Leaving the only way to say he came back without retconning anything being 'Somehow he returned'
I always believed he used Essence transfer when it came to his return just like he did during the Operation Shadow Hand books. That would not surprise me either
Even if that's what he did in canon, it was clear that was never the intention while writing the original trilogy. He was supposed to die, but they brought him back decades later because they made the strange decision to kill off snoke
