It's a story that has since become an urban legend of sorts, except it's totally real: when the video game market crashed in the early 80s, there was so many unsold copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600 (one of the two nails in the coffin for the game industry at the time, with the other being the equally horrific 2600 port of Pac-Man) that they were buried in a New Mexico landfill.
And it's a story that Fuel Industries, a Canadian film production and entertainment company, wants to tell. According to Alamogordo, New Mexico's local news, the city commission has approved a deal that gives Fuel Industries the right to excavate the dumpsite over the next six months, for the purpose of creating a documentary.
It's also worth noting that this year is the 30th anniversary of the mass Atari cartridge disposal.
According to reports, "at least" nine semi trucks filled to the brim with E.T. cartridges were dumped in September of 83. They were then crushed and buried underneath concrete. The man who ran the garbage company responsible for the dumping at the time, Joe Lewandowski, claims to knows where the dump site is in the 100-acre landfill.
He also states it wasn't just copies of E.T that were buried but also game systems as well. No doubt the Atari 2600, though it wouldn't be surprising if the Atari 5200 was also included in the mix. It's perhaps a given that Lewandowski will be featured in the documentary.
As for city officials, they apparently hope the documentary will put their home on the map. According to the major:
"I hope more people find out about Alamogordo through this opportunity that we have to unearth the Atari games in the landfill."
