Unable to Delete table

In my oracle 9i Schema there is a table called 'AREA'

When I ran a DTS from SQL Server to populate some tables in my schema it erroneously created another table by the name 'area'. how it is possible to create two objects with the same name?

(actually two other tables 'area_party_votes_pr' &
'area_party_votes_ward' was also created. For convenience am referring
only to one table 'area')

More trouble is that , I am not able to delete the new 'area' table.

pls see the below sqls

ers2006_at_SABCDB01.WORLD>select * from user_tables where table_name like
'ar%' or table_name like 'AR%';

TABLE_NAME                     TABLESPACE_NAME
CLUSTER_NAME                   IOT_NAME
------------------------------ ------------------------------
--------------------------
AREA                           ERS2006

AREA_PARTY_VOTES_PR            ERS2006

AREA_PARTY_VOTES_WARD          ERS2006

area                           ERS2006

area_party_votes_pr            ERS2006

area_party_votes_ward          ERS2006

ers2006_at_SABCDB01.WORLD>drop table area;

Table dropped.

ers2006_at_SABCDB01.WORLD>select * from user_tables where table_name like
'ar%' or table_name like 'AR%';

TABLE_NAME                     TABLESPACE_NAME
CLUSTER_NAME                   IOT_NAME
------------------------------ ------------------------------
------------------------------ -----------
AREA_PARTY_VOTES_PR            ERS2006

AREA_PARTY_VOTES_WARD          ERS2006

area                           ERS2006

area_party_votes_pr            ERS2006

area_party_votes_ward          ERS2006

• this shows the table 'AREA' was dropped.
• now again I shall execute the same statement in an attempt to drop
  'area'
  

ers2006_at_SABCDB01.WORLD>drop table area;
drop table area

           *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00942: table or view does not exist

• any idea how to delete the 'area' table