<p>This paper introduces a temporal puzzle in the antecedents of one-past X-marked conditionals, where the X-marker is a past tense. The past appears ‘fake’, as antecedents can combine with future adverbials. We show that while all examined languages allow antecedents with future reference, only non-Sequence of Tense (<span>sot</span>) languages (e.g., Hebrew, Japanese, Farsi, Polish, Standard Arabic) allow past adverbials; <span>sot</span> languages such as English, French, Italian, and Swedish do not. We propose that this split follows from whether a language generally permits shifted present-under-past readings, and that one-past X-marked conditionals offer an instance of a present-under-past configuration. We argue that antecedents of one-past X-marked conditionals contain a present tense in all languages, and that a higher temporal past scopes over the conditional, as proposed in past-as-past theories of X-marked conditionals. We conclude that, analyzing the X-past as a genuine temporal operator provides a principled, nonstipulative solution to our temporal puzzle.</p>