Unknown cell entry

I am using a spreadsheet written by someone else that contains a type of cell entry I am not familiar with. These occur in several tables. The first 3 columns of each table contain numbers or basic formulas. These are followed by two columns in which every entry appears to be the following:

{=TABLE(,B33)}

Despite the same apparent "formula", the number displayed in each of these cells is different. If I click on the formula display box (to the right of the cell address box) to edit the "formula", the brackets disappear.

Can anyone tell me what sort of beast I am dealing with here?