Fear Factor

I was working on a ladder up under the eaves the other day and was a bit nervous to find this creature a few feet away from me. Probably completely harmless... but at the time it was a bit difficult to immediately deduce my high chances of survival (another way of saying I just about wet my pants). Later we found out that a Houston friend had actually just posted a very similar photo. So I wonder, could it be the same spider, secretly stalking all of us and reporting our activities back to his alien mothership? Or just Arachnophobia gone wild?