Did you see a line of mysterious lights across the North Texas sky on Thursday night?

Did you see a string of lights move across the sky over North Texas on Thursday night, more than a dozen of them in a straight line?

The startling sight around 9:44 p.m., coming from the western sky, was reminiscent of something from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

But before you start molding your mashed potatoes into a mountain peak, here’s a likely explanation.

The lights were probably SpaceX Skylink satellites, which were reflecting the sun that had already dipped low below the horizon.

Starlink is a high-speed internet service using a constellation of satellites operating in a low orbit around the Earth.

So, no, it wasn’t an alien invasion. You’ll still need to go to work tomorrow.

Matt Leclercq

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Matt Leclercq is senior managing editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He previously was an editor at USA Today in Washington, national news editor at Gatehouse Media in Austin, and executive editor of The Fayetteville (NC) Observer. He’s a New Orleans native.