Strange behavior with date… wordpress thinks it’s 2007… sometimes

I noticed this on just this one installation of wordpress, not sure what could be messing things up. Here are the symptoms:

1. the date function in the footer <?php the_time('Y'); ?> displays 2007
2. a media upload done today ended up in /wp-content/uploads/2007/09/
3. Posts created today however have a correct publish date of Sep 29, 2009
4. also in “general settings” in the admin the section that lets you select your date format is also showing the correct date.

What is going on? This installation is in a subdomain of my main site and the php calls for the date on my main site are showing the correct year, so it’s not my server. I don’t think… help!