correct me if im wrong but if they use time() in php (or similar function in other languages) to parse out the date- that returns the time, in seconds since Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT). The date they have: Dec 31 1969 is like spot on. So Im assuming somehow they are parsing out the date from a timestamp of 0. But who knows how it got that way.. variable typo etc.
yeah a variable typo is probably what it is... but I think that means they have completely lost the record of the real date.