The “Chinese spy balloon” that was spotted over Alaska and sensitive areas of the U.S. mainland before being shot down into the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4 only added to growing tensions between the U.S. and China.

What to make, then, of “a row of green lasers beaming down from space like a picket fence … above Hawaii island,” as the Star-Advertiser’s Tim Hurley described it? A Japanese observatory camera attached to the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea captured the fleeting image on Jan. 28.

Don’t panic, NASA says: Its analysis, released Feb. 6, concludes the lasers likely emanated from a Chinese scientific satellite, which monitors the atmosphere. No spycraft, in this case.