One of pop culture's weirdest mysteries is finally going to be solved.
Legend has it that in 1983, millions of discarded copies of the Atari 2600 games 'E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial' and 'Pac-Man' were buried in a landfill in New Mexico following the massive commercial failure of both titles. (The console version of 'Pac-Man' did sell seven million copies, but that still left Atari with five million copies gathering dust; 'E.T.' was just an unmitigated disaster.)
While it's true that Atari did bury SOMETHING in that landfill in Alamogordo on September 26, 1983, and stories circulated about kids "robbing the Atari grave", coming up with cartridges of games like 'E.T.', 'Defender', 'Bezerk' and — appropriately enough — 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark', it's never been confirmed that all those discarded game cartridges were actually dumped there.
That hasn't stopped people from speculating, though (one of the most tantalising rumours is that prototypes for the Atari Mindlink, a revolutionary controller system, ended up buried at the site). On September 29, 1983, a layer of concrete was poured over the top of the landfill, an unusual measure that only added to its mystique.
Wintergreen's music video for 'When I Wake Up' tells the story of the band digging up the cartridges:
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Alas, they didn't really travel to the site, and the mystery remains, er, mysterious.
Now, Fuel Entertainment have been given exclusive rights by the Alamogordo city council to go digging for this pop culture gold mine. Partnered up with Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios and LightBox Entertainment, they'll (probably) put the conspiracy theories to rest — Kotaku reports that the dig will finally get underway on April 26, 2014.
What will they find, buried deep within the sands of New Mexico? Your guess is as good as ours, but we don't think this guy will be happy about it.
