Class Auto-Assigning to Variable

I have a situation where, for some unknown reason, where each class that finishes its __contruct{} function, that class gets automatically assigned to a variable - other than the variable I specify. Conceptually: class Hello { private $_world = 'World'; __construct(){} } $clsHello = new Hello(); echo 'The variable $hello is '.gettype($hello)."\n".print_r($hello,true); Output: The variable $hello is object Hello Object ( [_world:Hello:private] => World ) There is no statement in my application that assigns an instance of the class to another variable, the name being a lowercase variant of the class name. Would there be a PHP function that would do this as a side-effect? I am more interested in learning what is happening as opposed to rolling back to a previous version. (A backup copy functions fine. A file compare does not reveal any likely suspects.) PHP5.4.17-NTS-VC9 (Windows XP-SP3)