Oracle Database Discussions

Greetings All,

Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
Windows 2008 R2

I had 18 unexplained columns appear on a table in one of the schemas. The column names are like SYS_000080$, SYS_000079$, ...

Anybody know if gathering statistics on the table will add columns to the table being analyzed, then dropped when stats have been collected?

I'm thinking (read as HOPE) that the gathering of statistics on this table was interrupted, hence leaving the extra columns.
Below is the SQL used to gather the stats.

       dbms_stats.gather_schema_stats (
                                ownname => 'schema_name_here',
                     estimate_percent => DBMS_STATS.AUTO_SAMPLE_SIZE,
                            method_opt => 'FOR ALL COLUMNS SIZE AUTO',
                                  cascade => TRUE,
                                   options => 'GATHER',
                                   degree => 6);

Can anyone confirm my suspicion please?

Thanks for your time,
Bob