We’ve all heard the urban legend about the massive failure that was Atari’s E.T. game. The story goes that Atari were expecting their ET game to be a massive commercial success following how big a hit the movie was. However, Atari massively over estimated demand for the game and the initial production run left scads of unsold cartridges when all was said and done. To get rid of the unsold games, Atari dumped and buried ten to twenty transport trucks full of unsold ET games at a landfill near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Until now, that story was just an urban legend. Now, a Canadian documentary crew is setting out to find out if the story is actually true or if the Great Atari Burial is just an urban legend.

The Alamogordo City Council has granted the Ottawa-based entertainment company Fuel Industries a six-month permit to access and excavate at the Alamogordo landfill to determine if the burial site actually exist. It was said that Atari originally chose the Alamogordo landfill because it didn’t allow scavenging and garbage was buried daily.

Over time, the accuracy of the story has been questioned. However, original stories from 1983 by Alamogordo Daily News and The New York Times claim it’s true. The Daily News says it got confirmation from the garbage disposal company used while the Times had their story confirmed by an Atari spokesperson.

The legendary Atari burial site is said to not only contain the reported 3.5 million ET game cartridges. It’s also been widely reported that unsold copies of Atari’s port of Pac-Man were also dumped. Various reports also indicate that unsold Atari consoles are also buried in New Mexico.

I don’t know what anyone plans to do with 3.5 million unsold ET cartridges but I’m sure that they would make decent coasters… Once you got the smell out.

Source: Ars Technica