It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dragon in the NYT.

At first glance, it looked as though someone had spilled some coffee on The New York Times.

A second glance revealed that the stain wasn’t really a stain at all, more like a shadow. In fact, the shadow looked like a dragon.

That’s exactly what it was, seemingly flying across the pages of the Arts section on Monday, a clever advertisement for the upcoming season of “Game of Thrones.”

The ad ran over top of some dummy copy, not real NYT stories. It was simply the shape of a dragon, wings flung out in flight. It was mean to indicate that the dragon was flying overhead and casting its shadow on your paper.

On the bottom right was the ad copy, advertising the return of “Thrones” on March 31 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

The ad got all sorts of play online, where it was commented on in social media and spurred stories by several media-focused news organizations.

Tags: all sorts, beast, clever advertisement, dragon, first glance, hbo, media, new york times, news organizations, nyt, online, shape