Buried copies of failed movie game E.T. have been found

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April 26, 2014

[UPDATE] A post to Xbox Wire details what a team of filmmakers and excavators searching for long-buried E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges found at the Alamogordo Landfill in New Mexico today.

“The findings started out very promising, with an old, dusty Atari 2600 joystick buried in the landfill,” Xbox Wire Staff said. “Then an ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ cartridge. A box. An instruction manual. And the confirmation of ‘a lot more down there.’”

At this point it’s not clear how many more cartridges of the game are left to dig up, only that they are “100 percent there.”

The post to Xbox Wire also revealed the working title for the documentary which inspired the search, Atari: Game Over.

The original story is below.

It seems like the search for millions of copies of failed movie tie-in game E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico has finally turned something up.

The dig, which begun in earnest today, has turned up copies of the game you can see in the picture below. The crew operating the excavators are saying there are many more.

Buried copies of failed movie game E.T. have been found — Image credit: Larry Hryb.

Apparently E.T. wasn't the only game buried at the site. Here’s a picture of another copy and also the Atari 2600 game, Centipede:

Whatever else the search turns up will be captured on film for a documentary Microsoft commissioned about the dig. It will debut as a multi-part documentary series exclusively on Xbox platforms later this year.

The final excavation of the site is a long time coming for Microsoft. Alamogordo city commissioners approved the search in June, but the project was later put on hold because a waste excavation plan needed to be finalized before the digging could begin. Microsoft got that approval just earlier this month.

We’ll keep updating this story with any new details from today’s dig.