The Internet did a collective spit-take Tuesday night when the @3rdeyegirl account on Twitter -- used primarily for promoting Prince's new band of the same name -- posted this:

About a minute later, an uninspired, yet playful second tweet:

And about 10 minutes later, a third tweet:

At this point, Twitter follwers started asking for verification it was Prince himself. And of course, nothing like showing him eating the overly peppered food, or sitting at a laptop with today's newspaper emerged. But, there were some interesting exchanges to observe as Prince (or "Prince") engaged with nearly 20 very excited fans.

Twitter messages containing photo and video of recent shows were also posted, seemingly out-of-step with the band's preference that no performances from their concerts get posted to YouTube. They've since been removed.

And there was also a shout-out to Janelle Monae, whose new album Electric Lady (out Sept. 10) features Prince on a track.

Maybe it was all a promotional stunt for new material, or just putting the parody account PrinceTweets2U in its place... or maybe it was the real thing. If nothing else, it's helped the @3rdeyegirl account nearly triple in followers in less than 12 hours.

What do u think? Was Prince on Twitter 4 real?