Seems peculiar but it’s been confirmed by Facebook. Some users have started reporting that their old threads from years ago have started resurfacing on Messenger.
According to a report in The Verge, the issue was 1st reported by users on Twitter, but the company (FB) now confirms that older messages are being treated as new, unread ones & popping up in the Messenger tab on Facebook.com. The explanation for this seems vague, said the report.
Here’s the rest of the report.