request

And if you need a sitewide valid reason, if it is neither of the two things I mentioned above. Then perhaps its a bug in the counter system making it somewhat pointless due to it not being accurate. Someone has to pay attention to small details in life ^_^

It's not that inaccurate, but sometimes the site gets slammed by all sorts of things. Most often it's one of two things:

a) A search engine bot. A number of bots roll through on a daily basis, making up a small single-digit percentage of traffic. The number goes back down pretty quick.
b) A script hacker. Mindless 13-year olds trying exploit 5-year old browser bugs.

Keep in mind also that you can run up the "connections" counter on most sites by simply closing your browser and reconnecting. Nothing on the web is even remotely scientific (polls, counters, surveys, stats, etc.) without attaching huge margins of error.