Can a Flash movie be viewed on a machine that does not have Flash installed?

I am creating a webpage that has a .swf file on the index.html (home) page. I am using Dreamweaver MX. I came across a website that had a flash movie on it's intro page that played on my machine, which at the time did not have flash installed on it. I was running a newly clean system with the Win 98 se platform (no service upgrades) on it. The browser was not upgraded either. I found it odd that the movie would play without a new version browser or without having Flash Player installed. Also, I was not prompted to install anything.  I made a point to save the code of the page which I noticed had references to the macromedia website. Unfortunately, between that point and now, the harddrive with the infromation on it crashed, and the website has since changed.

My question is. Is it possible that a .swf file played on a system that did not have Flash installed, either by referencing something on the macromedia website or including some code on the webpage? Or, am I imagining things? And if I am not imagining things, how is this done. Thank you.