I'm honestly not sure if this is a PHP bug or a MySQL bug. I apologize if this is a waste of time. Here's an example script:

$timenow = time();
$red = ($timenow-345600);

$ticket_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM opentickets WHERE AskDate < $red");

This query returns all tickets where AskDate is earlier than the $red date, PLUS all tickets above 1 billion on the time stamp! Ack! I have resolved this by removing the single quotes from around '$red' in my query, so it reads: 

$ticket_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM opentickets WHERE AskDate < $red"); 

Just thought I would share this.