Alpha setting not working?

Dear people of Kirupa

I have flash project, on frame 3 I have dragged some MC’s to the stage and set the alpha value to 0% so they are hidden. the reson for this is I want to use them later on in the movie but want them to fully load first (because I’m using a preloader on frames 1 & 2).

the problem is that when I publish my movie and the playhead passes frame 3 the MC’s are visable on that frame?

Anybody had this problem or know a solution?

many thanks for the time!

Joe