Graphic symbol woes

Okay, this is the strangest problem I’ve ever encountered. I’ve got a graphics symbol in my fla that is trying to take over the world! For the sake of simplicity, we’ll say that this graphic symbol is a TREE. (It’s really just some text, but we’ll call it a TREE.) In my timeline, there’s one graphic that animates in for the first page of the site, a second graphic that animates in for page two, and the TREE animates in for page 3.

The problem is that no matter what graphic symbols I put on the stage AFTER page 3, they all turn into the TREE symbol once they’re on the stage!! For instance, let’s say I have a BALL symbol. I look at the BALL in the timeline, and the little preview looks like a ball . . . GOOD! But when I try to drag it onto the stage instead of the TREE, it actually shows up as TREE! And when I click on it, the properties panel says that it’s an instance of the TREE graphic!

PLEASE HELP! What could the problem be?

(In case you need more explanation, here’s more: If the TREE symbol is already on the stage and I drag the BALL onto the stage in the same frame, both the TREE and the BALL appear on the stage. However, if I then delete the TREE symbol, then the BALL symbol suddenly turns into the TREE! I’m confounded–like the bridge in the Led Zeppelin song.)