Stray characters at the beginning of the doc-from the header.php?

I have noticed stray characters appearing right before the header once I create a header file; am I missing some code to insert to keep this from happening? Here's a sample of my header file (as short as it is:)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • -
                          <?php
                          
                          echo <<< EOH
                          
                          <img src="./images/headergraphic.jpg" alt="my header graphic title"><br/>
                          
                          EOH;
                          
                          ?>
                          
                        
                        
                        
                        
                      
                      
                      
                      
                    
                    
                    
                    
                  
                  
                  
                  
                
                
                
                
              
              
              
              
            
            
            
            
          
          
          
          
        
        
        
        
      
      
      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  
• • • • • • • • • • • • • 
                          I save it to a file called header.php, it goes into the include directory, and it does the job, except it's always preceded by the following two characters, regardless of the browser/platform (have tried it on XP, OS X, IE 6, 7, Firefox 1.5, 2, Safari) :
                          
                          any suggestions?
                          Dean Meyers