'DATE' output from vmcore analysis does not match date/time of the system logs

Issue

• crash debugging output returns 'sys' output including the date and time of the system panic. This does not match the actual panic time on the machine which crashed, and/or doesn't match up with the timestamps in /var/log/messages
• I am looking at a vmcore from a machine using the crash tool. The time/date reported by the crash 'sys' command in 'DATE:" field does not match the localtime of the machine which crashed.