It's not so strange, really. MMF does it. It has to exist somewhere. If you don't want it there when the level starts, just check "Destroy on Startup."
I'm dynamically placing objects (like an enemy ship). However, to actually create the object I have to place it somewhere during creation time. The common thing to do (shown in tutorials) is to place it off the layout, but this doesn't help in my case because the ship travels off the layout as well. How to create a sprite and NOT put in statically on the layout during creation time??
Why not have a loading sequence at the start of layout that places all of your objects before they have a chance to be seen?
However, when the player decides to "takeoff" and return to the space layout, everything is back to the way it was during game start. Is there a way to keep state between layouts? So the player's ship will be over the planet when you return to the layout?
Use a global variable for the ship's position when it enters a planet layout, and set the ship to that position again when the ship returns to the space layout.