I'm making an AJAX call to retrieve some plain text: $.ajax({ url: "programData.txt", type: "GET", dataType: "text", cache: false, success: processData }); When I make the request, though, I get the following error: Error: not well-formed Source File: file:///projects/foo/programData.txt?_=1259694590361 Line: 1, Column: 2 Why is jQuery trying to process my plain text and how do I get it to stop?