Charles Ventura

USA TODAY

Some of the lights at the Statue of Liberty went out for several hours Tuesday night, leaving many observers baffled on social media.

An EarthCam livestream captured the famous Ellis Island statue in the dark, with only her crown and torch illuminated in the New York skyline.

That didn't stop Twitter users from guessing why Lady Liberty was cloaked in darkness, though:

Many suggested that the iconic landmark went dark due to the upcoming A Day Without a Woman protest, where women are encouraged not to work and to avoid shopping in order to shed light on social, economic, cultural and political contributions made by women.

The National Park Service, which operates the monument, offered an explanation on the odd episode.

"A portion of the lighting system that illuminates the Statue of Liberty experienced a temporary, unplanned outage tonight," National Park Service public affairs officer Jerry Willis told USA TODAY. "The outage was most likely due to work related to an ongoing project to activate a new emergency backup generator that is part of our last remaining Hurricane Sandy recovery projects."

The official cause of the unplanned outage will be determined when crews return to the Island Wednesday morning, Willis added.