The timer was moving backward.
At first, conspiracy forums thought it was a hoax. Then someone noticed the number matched the Unix timestamp of the first known photograph of Earth from space—1946. Not 1968 from Apollo, but 1946, from a captured Nazi V-2 rocket launched by American soldiers in New Mexico. flashwing.net
Where it all began.
Towards the horizon.
A teenager in Osaka pressed it first. Then a librarian in Buenos Aires. Then a pilot on a red-eye over the Atlantic. The timer was moving backward