Legendary Atari E.T. Games Dumped In Desert To Be Excavated, 30 Years Later

A documentary crew has just gotten permission to excavate a site where millions of Atari games, including copies of ET cartridges, were hypothetically buried. The dig may solve one of gaming's most persistent urban legends.

A site near Alamagordo, New Mexico is where the Atari games were supposedly buried in September 1983. The dig will mark the 30 year anniversary of the possible burial.  Fuel Industries, a documentary crew, has just gotten permission from city council for the dig.

The games were allegedly buried during the video game crash that left Atari with millions of unsold game cartridges and systems. Atari dumped the unusable materials in a landfill and covered them in concrete-or so the legend says.

Most of the burial is supposedly comprised of 3.5 million unsold copies of E.T. Thirty years later, gamers and history buffs would love to get their hands on a cartridge. But the site may also hold unsold consoles, PCs, and even prototypes of the Atari Mindlink controller.

Conflicting reports abound in the story-the material may total anywhere from 9 to 20 dump trucks full. At the time, the dump was reported in both the Alamagordo Daily News and the New York Times, but the accounts and sources vary.

It remains to be seen what the site holds or what condition the Atari games are in-but gaming buffs are waiting with bated breath. E.T. may phone home after all