  The recent announcement that sodium absorption has been observed in the
atmosphere of HD209458b, the only EGP observed to transit its parent star, is
the first direct detection of an EGP atmosphere. We explore the possibility
that neutral sodium is {\em not} in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) in
the outer atmosphere of irradiated EGPs and that the sodium concentration may
be underestimated by models that make the LTE assumption. Our results indicate
that it may not be necessary to invoke excessive photoionization, low
metallicity, or even high altitude clouds to explain the observations.
