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Part 4: The Atari Landfill Revealed |
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Disclaimer: This part is my personal commentary. In an interview with Don Carroll he asked an interesting question, "Why is this interesting?". Well Don, I've thought long and hard about it, and have come to a few conclusions. I can only speak for myself, as Atari was a large part of my childhood. I can't remember how many times I was caught at 3am sneaking into the living room to play Defender or Missile Command. I would race a good friend home from school (about one mile, at a full run) to get the red tank in Combat. So I believe that this story captures a sense of childhood and innocence lost. It is an ending of a chapter in my life, and an end of a chapter (in my vast hobby) of video gaming's life. As insignificant as this event may have seemed to the people of Alamogordo, it is of major significance to an entire generation of gamers and game companies. Most people and professionals have little idea this event even took place, but it changed an entire market. After Atari's collapse and departure from games, the public at large dismissed video games as a fad. Atari's business model showed the market that it was doomed to failure and a great way to create and then allow outside destruction of a market. After a huge change in business model and policy Nintendo brought the world back video games. Based on what was learned from Atari, Nintendo used strict policies of approving games that were made for its console. This eliminated hundreds of poorly made clone games from flooding the market, the key mistake of Atari. Nintendo kept a firm hold on the production of the market to prevent dumping of excess product in landfills. As this model proved successful in keeping good games in the market and waste down, many companies (Sega, NEC, etc.) started their own video game divisions and started marketing consoles of their own. Atari nearly stopped all video gaming with the outright bleeding of the market in the name of massive profits. In the end, Atari's empire fell and ended up in a landfill in New Mexico, not on the stock market floor. It really is Atari's greatest story never told, because it really was the end of the empire and of a digital generation. That is why it's so important Mr. Carroll. On the Subject of the Glove That Fits... Okay, I know you all want that one piece of evidence; the glove that fits, the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body, the document proving who shot JFK, or the missing video tape of the pentagon hit. I don't have those, but at least I can prove the Atari Landfill... In the process of tracking down evidence and research I came across allot of (what I like to call) friend of friend who knows someone through six degrees of Kevin Bacon stories. Most of them are inaccurate and downright stupid, some had bits of useful information but those were few and far between. Because the stories themselves are not really evidence, I'm providing some interesting ones on a sub-page here. As I feel most of you looking for the real facts may not be interested in speculation and rumor. So if you are interested, I present the friend of friend who knows someone through six degrees of Kevin Bacon stories, rumors, and downright stupidity. (Note: A list of the stories are coming soon, as of 11/23/06 a few of the authors permission needs to be obtained. Will be online by 1/1/07) The Search Today... The search today is a collection of Atari hobbyists and dedicated geeks. Some of my investigation was obtained through other online research done by other dedicated individuals. The following video's were a part of a thread on the AtariAge website message board, where one member (Spud) got some video interviews and other information. I present them here, mirrored on my website. If you are interested in reading the original thread from the board, you can find that here.
It was cool to find others researching the event as I was, but my break though was more direct... an eyewitness. An Interview with the Mayor Sometimes, something will go incredibly right. This is one of those times! I was actually trying to obtain information on the exact landfill location and who was in charge of the landfill. I was placing calls to the City Clerk identifying myself as a website owner only to be hung up on. The second time I called, I was told "Fuck Off". I then did a bit of social engineering, I called the clerk back claiming to be from a consulting firm looking to speak with the mayor. She was then very nice and gave me the mayor's home phone number.
I called the mayor at around 10:30am on October 23rd, 2005. There was no answer, I left a voice message identifying who I was and if he be nice enough to be interviewed for an online article about the Atari Landfill. To my surprise, at 12:29pm October 23rd, 2005 he called me back on my cell phone willing to answer some questions. This is the smoking gun!!! I was only hoping for some general information and a verification of the landfill location, what I got however, is an eyewitness account. Mr. Don Carroll was a city counsel man in Sept. of 1983 and remembered the events of the dumping. Question 1: In 1983, Atari Inc dumped between 10-20 semi-truck loads of trash at your local landfill. Do you remember hearing any rumors or information regarding that event? Answer: "I seem to remember that happening. Yes Atari did dump materials in our landfill" he continued, "But I don't know what the contents of the trucks were. If it was games, or consoles, or computers." He also mentioned that he did see the trucks entering the landfill himself. Question 2: Can you confirm the location of the landfill used? Answer: "The site is located off South White Sands Blvd.", he added that it's now used as a recreation area by locals. Question 3: What was your job at the time? Answer: (City counsel man) "I was a member of the governing body at the time." Question 4: Do you recall what day this all started on? Answer; "It was a Friday." Question 5: There is a rumor that concrete was poured on top of the Atari materials, can you confirm or deny this? Also what day did it happen? Answer: "They did pour concrete. There were problems with people trying to get free games." He could not remember what the name of the concrete company was, but confirmed the concrete was poured on the mourning of Sept. 29, 1983. Question 6: Did you ever think that this event would gather an almost cult like following among Atari hobbyists on the Internet? Answer: "What I remember, It didn't seem like a big event." He added, "I didn't really pay that much attention to it.". He sighted however the town youngsters were having great fun digging free games out of the pit. After that question me and mayor had a informal chat, since he was calling me back on his lunch, time was limited. But in our chat he asked me, "Why is this important." An interesting question to ponder (My response was above), and he also asked me "Why did Atari do this?". So I explained to him what you have read here today, and he responded back in a humorous tone... "Sounds like Atari was cooking the books..." We had to end our conversation at that moment and I thanked him, my impressions of the mayor are high. He was a nice guy who took the time to answer some strange questions from a geek computer programmer researching an obscure topic and seemed to really enjoy the conversation. Mr. Carroll even pointed me in the direction of other people to talk too that were more closely related to the events of that day. Little did Mr. Carroll know, he just provided the smoking gun proof of this story. Only one thing left, where is the Atari carts in the landfill? The Landfill
Location
Here is a aerial photo from google earth of the landfill. Slightly above the words White Sands is the entrance to the landfill. You can note, that the large black blob (above the word White and Sands) is the pile of old rusted dumpsters shown in the video above. Oh Where, Oh Where have all the Atari Games Gone... The next part here is plain guess work at trying to find the location of the games in the landfill. Since no one really can put an exact dot on the map, lets try to do some forensic work (again, this is pure guess work). To the east and west of the city there are steep mountains, to the south there is very flat land. But through the help of google earth's 3D terrain I think I made a match with the newspaper photo published on 9/25/83. Here is a picture from Google Earth with 3D terrain enabled.
Now if I overlay the newspaper image at the same angle I can match the terrian, see below.
Not exactly scientific and only a guess. But the best match I could find. (The terrain is very mountainous to the right in this image, and extremely flat to the left and south. This left the northeastern ridge the only visible landmark that fits.) The only real answer would be to take ground radar to the site and search for a large return. A slab of concrete would be quite noticeable in a landfill of small objects. So there is really no sure way to tell were the games are with out one, but it's fun to speculate. In Closing... I have presented all I've learned to prove this story is not an urban legend. I hope you have enjoyed yourself, and that you now have an interesting story to share with people. I fell in deep interest with this story since it was declared an urban legend by Snopes (they later changed it to confirmed). The story is so strange and unlikely it was worth the investigation. If you found this article interesting, why not Digg It! or submit it to Slashdot? I'm not ad whoring as there are no ads on the site, but I feel this is a fun story for all to read. Knowledge is free and belongs to everyone! For first time readers of the story, the road now splits for you: Continue as you wish to the supplemental sections! If you are interested to learn more about me or the project continue to part 5 here. |
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