I think it's unlikely the lights happened to send the right IR pattern.

I once hooked a TV remote up to a logic analyser to have a look and here's how the on/off signal looked for this brand: http://olivernash.org/2010/01/03/the-telly-terminator/rc6-6-...

Some further details here: http://olivernash.org/2010/01/03/the-telly-terminator/

Of course it's still possible!