ET Found in New Mexico Landfill

Yeah, there was never any doubt about it being there (at least to people that had a clue). In fact, one of the Atari employees that was in charge of sending the stuff to the dump originally was on-site (as was the programmer of E.T.). They started about 8 or 9 in the morning, and cartridges weren't found until several hours of excavating with heavy machinery. There's pictures of newspapers unearthed that look like you'd be able to read them now, as well as someone's 1979 tax return that looks like it's just been in a filing cabinet . A dry, desert environment, buried in the ground, under concrete is going to preserve this stuff for decades (as was just proved). They even had two Atari 2600's on site and were able to confirm that some cartridges still worked.

I think the 'urban legend' was that it was full of thousands of ET cartridges (and, so the story sounded, nothing else). That's just not the case, it was simply a warehouse full of unsold games. Sure, a lot of those probably are ET, but even more of them are other stuff...

ET was not the first game found, and in fact more cartridges that _weren't_ ET were unearthed than those that were ET. I've seen pictures of areas of the dig with Warlords, Defender, Centipede, Breakout, Asteroids... More than 20 different titles have been found so far, and even a piece of a joystick. But there was a complete (though crushed) shipping box of ETs, holds 8 or 10 copies I think... And of course there was a lot more crushed, unusable and probably even unidentifiable cartridge 'crap' that was uncovered... They only showed us the cool stuff.

Quote from Jerry Jessop (ex-Atari employee) who was there:
"They found mostly titles other than ET today in fact. They brought up non ET carts first (as opposed to how all of us not there were shown ET carts first in the media), not sure if that was the plan or not. It was cool for me but honestly you didn't miss anything. It was dirty, howling wind, and the items were absolutely known to be there. Jim Heller was there and he was in charge of (the original) dumping of the stuff. He laughed about the whole thing because he knew it was all there and told them that, they flew him down there. It's actually smart, bring guys in who have the facts and know where the stuff was dumped and how, I even spoke to some of the old landfill employees and they had great stories. The outcome was never in question if you did some research."

As was mentioned before, there was nothing that needed to be 'found'. They knew it was there, and knew exactly _where_ it was. It was just a matter of digging it up, which isn't hard to do with a giant hydraulic excavator...

[Edit] Although I just found this quote in an article, so they did some pre-digging first to find out exactly where the site was:
"Joe Lewandowski, who became manager of the 300-acre landfill a few months after the cartridge dump and has been a consultant for the documentarians, told The Associated Press that they used old photographs and dug exploratory wells to find the actual burial site."

 

Then it's a matter of the media twisting this story and that they "discovered" them. All bullshit.

 

Digging through 30 year old rubbish to find 30 year old shit. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, twats.

Back in 1985 I buried a copy of Jet Set Willy for the Acorn Electron as part of a school class time capsule project. If anyone wants the location next year, send me a pm. At least JSW is worth playing.

 

If it includes the Acorn to play it on I'm down.

 

I'll just be glad when this is all over. This story has been popping up in the news all week (Im in Albuquerque). Let it die.

 

Nah, you can keep it. The Banyan Tree pisses me off too much

 

Nah, you can keep it. The Banyan Tree pisses me off too much

 

I wonder how much time will it pass until these carts start appearing on eBay as "One of The Legendary Cart buried" for a million dollars... :S

 

Don't give people ideas...

 

Well I ain't paying £5 for that fucking 30 year old shit.

 

At least the dirt on the cart would be better than a vga case

 

From what I've heard, the people doing the documentary are getting the carts, and they might sell them.

Probably not for a million dollars.

 

@ wan5, cheap! :cocksure:
....
on the mexican connection...

^^ as good as any reason to visit, could do to brush up on my culinary skills. :friendly_wink:
....
(seriously considering taxing it into sigil, it made my miserable day, thanks!)

 

FEATURED in the best selling documentary!!!! VGA Graded!

 

^^ hmm? (this is....)
...
i'll take his prices and GRADES over most of the users from here ANY day of the week!
...
at least tell the man how you feel in pm/email (person)
...
...
not trying to be a cunt but i get a little defensive when my friends are slated...
and coming from staffs....not becoming!

 

VGA he is referring to is not a person.
http://www.vggrader.com

 

^^ that changes everything, never heard of 'vggrader' before...
..
WOW!
i'm a dick!
here's me thinking the site had a hard-on for somebody i knew, but it's something else entirely!
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@ mickcris.
appreciate the link, clears up ALL!
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@ HEX1GON.
apologies for thinking you was referring to a person i knew....(vga)
when all the time, it was a grade site!
...
my bad, sorry all!

 

They are all over eBay. People get their games graded and try to charge 10x or so more for them.

 

^^ the sense sets in...
looking at what the actual beef is!
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i can see why others would be pissed at those prices too. having a look around...and it's unsettling to say the least! (finger needs to get back on pulse)
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man, that was confusing! (i'll be using reference 'vggrader' to avoid mixups)

 

Sounds like it. Maybe they'll put a sticker on the carts, I'm thinking one of those black starbursts with yellow writing.