Legendary Atari Landfill, Site Of Massive E.T. Video Game Dump, Is Poised For Excavation

Excavation Planned To Recover The Terrible 'E.T.' Video Game

The small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico, is home to a landfill and an urban legend. Soon it will be the site of a documentary film.

Legend has it that the town's 100-acre landfill was a site of a huge dump by gaming company Atari in 1983, local news station KRQE reports. Atari made a home game version of the movie "E.T." that was thought to be so bad that the company allegedly dumped 3.5 million copies of the game.

A New York Times report from September 1983 confirms that Atari did, indeed, dump some game cartridges in the landfill, but it's unclear exactly how many or what else, if anything, is in the landfill.

The documentarians, Fuel Industries, will have access to the landfill for the next six months to dig around and film.

The town's citizens are excited about the publicity this documentary could bring Alamogordo. "I hope more people find out about Alamogordo through this opportunity that we have to unearth the Atari games in the landfill," Susie Galea, Alamogordo's mayor, told KRQE.

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