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Speaker 1: This is an iHeart original.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Very Special Episodes and Happy Thanksgiving. My

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Speaker 2: name is Jason English. I'm usually joined by Danish Schwartz

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Speaker 2: and Zaron Burnett, but it's a holiday week, so we're

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Speaker 2: going to do things a little different. Many of the

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Speaker 2: same people who work behind the scenes on Very Special

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Speaker 2: Episodes also worked on a show this fall called The

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Speaker 2: Legend of sword Quest. Jake Rowson, Josh Fisher, Jonathan Washington,

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Speaker 2: Biheid Frasier. These names may be familiar if you don't

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Speaker 2: skip through the credits. The Request is a limited run

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Speaker 2: show about the fall of Atari, with Jamie Loftus as

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Speaker 2: the host. I hope one day you're going to go

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Speaker 2: back and listen to the whole series, But today we're

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Speaker 2: going to share a bonus episode called The Landfill. You

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Speaker 2: don't need to know any thing about sword Quest or

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Speaker 2: Atari or video games to enjoy it, and we'll be

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Speaker 2: back next week with a new episode. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

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Speaker 2: Here's Jamie.

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Speaker 3: When people reminisce about Atari, they talk about the incredible

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Speaker 3: box art or the addictive gameplay. But one thing we

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Speaker 3: haven't covered is the smell. The terrible, terrible smell.

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Speaker 1: I had one guy in Rhode Island at bought one

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Speaker 1: who was worried about was it. When he got into

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Speaker 1: his house, opened up the zick blank bag and the

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Speaker 1: smell came out. He immediately wrote mea says, is this hazardous?

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Speaker 1: Is my whole family gonna die? And he was somewhat serious.

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Speaker 3: That's Joe Lewandowski. Joe is a sanitation specialist in the

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Speaker 3: city of Alamagordo, New Mexico, and what he's describing is

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Speaker 3: the old factory sensation one gets when they're confronted with

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Speaker 3: an Atari game cartridge that has a very special provenance.

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Speaker 3: These were games that were dug up from a landfill

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Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen after idling there for more than thirty years.

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Speaker 3: They had been dumped by Atari during the video game

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Speaker 3: crash Unwanted, Unloved Games. Throughout the years, this disposal has

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Speaker 3: developed into an urban legend, with some people doubting whether

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Speaker 3: it had ever actually happened, and others insisting it had.

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Speaker 3: Like a lot of these stories, it grew bigger over

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Speaker 3: time that Atari hadn't just dumped a few titles, but

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Speaker 3: had been on a clandestine mission to bury millions of

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Speaker 3: their very maligned et game. But Joe knew the truth.

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Speaker 3: He was there when the games were buried back in

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighty three, and he was the one who was

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Speaker 3: able to locate the dump site decades later, where hundreds

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Speaker 3: of thousands of games had been laid to rest. Once excavated,

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Speaker 3: they were prized by collectors for being a key part

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Speaker 3: of Atari history, even if they carried with them the

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Speaker 3: literal stench of failure.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the games, I said to the Vigamous Museum

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Speaker 1: in Rome, Italy. They set up a whole room with them,

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Speaker 1: and they'd set up a beautiful display. You can see

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Speaker 1: it online. It's one of the best presentations of the story.

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Speaker 1: They were joking about it. Every one of them had

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Speaker 1: two odor eaters underneath the game, trying to absorb the smell.

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Speaker 3: But in order to get those legendary buried games, Joe

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Speaker 3: would have to grapple with city bureaucracy. He'd have to

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Speaker 3: find out their exact burial spot, and he'd have to

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Speaker 3: contend with the people of Alamagordo, who believe digging them

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Speaker 3: up might mean releasing toxic waste into the air. But Joe,

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Speaker 3: like a lot of gamers, loves a challenge. For iHeartRadio

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Speaker 3: this is the legend of sword Quest. I'm your host,

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Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus, and this is a bonus episode. The landfill

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Speaker 3: like bad produce at a grocery store. That's how Atari

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Speaker 3: executive Bruce Enton explained Atari sending truckloads of games, systems,

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Speaker 3: and other waste from their facility in El Paso, Texas,

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Speaker 3: to Alamagordo, New Mexico. It was a journey of about

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Speaker 3: ninety miles that lasted over the course of a few

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Speaker 3: days in September nineteen eighty three. Most of the products,

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Speaker 3: he said, were defective and had nothing to do with

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Speaker 3: reports of an ailing video game industry, even though somewhere

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Speaker 3: between nine and twenty truckloads of Atari merchandise were hauled over.

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Speaker 3: Of course, this was what people in politics call spin.

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Speaker 3: The literal tons of games being routed to Alamagordo were

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Speaker 3: unsold and unwanted, the result of a manufacturing glut. Atari

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Speaker 3: was in real trouble, but they couldn't say that, so

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Speaker 3: the dump trucks full of games were waved away as

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Speaker 3: the electronic equivalent of misfit toys. Alamagordo is a city

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Speaker 3: known mostly for its proximity to White Sands missile range

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Speaker 3: where j. Robert Oppenheimer looked on as the US military

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Speaker 3: tested the first atomic bomb, and for having what's believed

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Speaker 3: to be the world's biggest pistachio sculpture, it wasn't exactly

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Speaker 3: thought of as a place to dump excess video game inventory.

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Speaker 3: So why there. For one thing, Atari paid the landfill

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Speaker 3: to take their trash about three hundred to five hundred

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Speaker 3: dollars per truck. For another, there was a landfill rule

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Speaker 3: that benefited Atari. Here's Joe Lewandowski.

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Speaker 1: The reason they brought them to al mcgardo is New

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Speaker 1: Mexico had no scavenging law that they wouldn't allow you

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Speaker 1: to scavenge at landfills. Texas did not have that. So

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Speaker 1: Texas landfills, when you drove in the empty trucks, there'd

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Speaker 1: be people standing around waiting for you to push those

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Speaker 1: loads out of your truck, and you know, just like flies,

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Speaker 1: they just right on the pile, ripped it all to

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Speaker 1: pieces and reused to recycle, not half of what you

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Speaker 1: just dumped. That wasn't allowed in New Mexico. Plus, Atari

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Speaker 1: was trying to keep it secret because you can imagine

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Speaker 1: if the stockholders of Atari found out that their company

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Speaker 1: was throwing things away, brand new product. Why would that

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Speaker 1: do to the stock? I mean, there'd be a bigger

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Speaker 1: crash than it was already happening. So that's the reason

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Speaker 1: they were trying to keep it secret.

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Speaker 3: Of course, just because there was a no plundering rule

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Speaker 3: doesn't mean anyone respected it. To some landfill games meant

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Speaker 3: free games. Local teens began raiding the site, digging up cartridges.

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Speaker 3: They were hoping to resell with a nice one profit margin.

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Speaker 3: That's because they didn't have to dig too deep.

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Speaker 1: So basically each night there was no more than six

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Speaker 1: inches of dirt or even less sometimes on top of

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Speaker 1: whatever you put in that day, so they were right there.

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Speaker 1: They just move a little bit of dirt and they

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Speaker 1: were solid, and they put them all in the same spot.

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Speaker 1: In fact, they diverted the trucks to another part of

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Speaker 1: the cell and this trench the regular garbage while they

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Speaker 1: were putting in the atari.

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Speaker 3: The Atari trench was about one hundred feet long thirty

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Speaker 3: to forty feet wide. It eventually got pretty deep, but

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Speaker 3: initially scavengers only needed to dig down a few inches,

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Speaker 3: or maybe not dig at all. One news report said

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Speaker 3: that some kids chased down a trash compactor, grabbing games

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Speaker 3: that were falling off the back and trying to sell them.

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Speaker 3: There was even a rumor someone had hijacked one of

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Speaker 3: the trucks, though that one probably isn't true.

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Speaker 1: Then there was a seventy year olds of the twelve

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Speaker 1: year olds that snuck in the middle of the night

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Speaker 1: and distracted the security guard and jumped in and got

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Speaker 1: them history teacher here. Now. Mcgordo was a teenager back then,

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Speaker 1: rode in on motocross bikes from the backside. Police pulled

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Speaker 1: over a pickup truck with three teenagers so full the

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Speaker 1: games were just falling off the side of the truck

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Speaker 1: as they were going down the street. So yeah, the

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Speaker 1: games everybody kind of knew. I knew one of the

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Speaker 1: supervisors from the other company that was actually running the

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Speaker 1: landfill at the time. He had a shed just stacked

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Speaker 1: all the way from back to front, loaded all right

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Speaker 1: to the door of the thing. So yeah, the games

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Speaker 1: went everywhere.

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Speaker 3: One newspaper even joked the landfill was turning into a

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Speaker 3: shopping mall. Pretty soon, Atari had secure at the dump.

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Speaker 3: One guard carried a broom handle, walking the perimeter and

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Speaker 3: ready to swat any potential resellers. City officials ordered that

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Speaker 3: concrete be poured over it to discourage looting.

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Speaker 1: That's why you can call it also the Atari Tomb,

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Speaker 1: because they did put concrete, but that was not part

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Speaker 1: of the original plan. When scavengers were getting them, they

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Speaker 1: tried to put concrete over them to keep those scavengers

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Speaker 1: from getting through, and that didn't slow anybody down either.

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Speaker 3: All of this was pretty common knowledge at the time,

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Speaker 3: but as the years went on it seemed to take

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Speaker 3: on a kind of legend, one that some people discounted entirely,

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Speaker 3: mostly because no one at Atari ever clarified the story

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Speaker 3: or even wanted to comment much on it. It grew

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Speaker 3: to the point that it was not only Atari games,

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Speaker 3: but specifically ET, the infamously bad game based on the movie,

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Speaker 3: that had to be trucked to the landfill. It fits

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Speaker 3: so well with the mythology because supposedly ET was solely

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Speaker 3: responsible for the VideA game crash. The truth is a

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Speaker 3: lot of bad games and too many games were to

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Speaker 3: blame for the crash, and a lot of games wound

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Speaker 3: up at the landfill, But some people doubted even that,

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Speaker 3: and over time Joe listened with some amusement as people

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Speaker 3: debated whether it ever even happened.

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Speaker 1: Because you know, most of the stuff on the internet

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Speaker 1: was a big war between gamers that it never happened.

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Speaker 1: It's all a myth, it's an urban legend, never happened.

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Speaker 1: Even Atari denied it happened. And then there's the other

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Speaker 1: ones that totally believed it was there, and somebody needs

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Speaker 1: to dig them up, and you know, somebody needs to

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Speaker 1: find them and all this other stuff.

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Speaker 3: So Joe knew without a doubt the games were there

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Speaker 3: while he wasn't working for the exact waste management company

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Speaker 3: that dumped it. He was in the business at the time.

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Speaker 3: Joe is an Alamgordo lifer. Raised there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, back then. Actually I owned one of the garbage

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Speaker 1: companies and I'd beat the other garbage company. It sold

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Speaker 1: out to us in August of eighty three. This dump

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Speaker 1: happened in September of eighty three. They were still running

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Speaker 1: the landfill. We were merging the two companies together. So

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Speaker 1: how I found out about is one of my drivers

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Speaker 1: came in and said, used to see what's going on

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Speaker 1: at the dump. So I drove out, saw the semi

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Speaker 1: truck there unloading brand new games. It wasn't just games.

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Speaker 1: There was also the twenty six hundred console and the

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Speaker 1: whole controllers, everything that was all brand new stuff and

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Speaker 1: grabbed a few, went back to work and forgot about it.

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Speaker 1: Since nineteen eighty three. Remember, once in a while somebody

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Speaker 1: would ask me and I said, hey, yea, yeah, it happened.

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Speaker 3: Eventually, around twenty ten, Joe decided there might be merit

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Speaker 3: in busting the myth once and for all. Why not

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Speaker 3: mount a kind of archaeological expedition becoming the Indiana Jones

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Speaker 3: of Atari trash. Joe's not much of a gamer, but

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Speaker 3: the challenge of it appealed to him. And it was

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Speaker 3: a challenge. For one thing, It's a big landfill, three

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Speaker 3: hundred acres, and back then no one was keeping track

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Speaker 3: of what trash was dumped.

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Speaker 1: Where there was no survey points, there was no GPS

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Speaker 1: markers or anything else. That was really the challenge. It's

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Speaker 1: three hundred acres looking again for something that's one hundred

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Speaker 1: feet long, thirty feet wide, four feet thick underground thirty

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Speaker 1: feet somewhere in the middle of the desert, and that

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Speaker 1: whole area had changed as that time. A bypass went in,

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Speaker 1: other buildings went in hot air Balloon Park went in,

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Speaker 1: so it wasn't what it was in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: So that was really the challenge. Could it be found

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Speaker 1: in all this?

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Speaker 3: The other problem was getting approval. One doesn't just go

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Speaker 3: rummaging around in a landfill. Joe needed permission from the city,

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Speaker 3: the governor, and the environmental protection agency. He also had

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Speaker 3: to address some serious potential consequences of digging around in there.

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Speaker 3: Back in nineteen sixty nine, pigs that had inadvertently been

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Speaker 3: fed mercury laced seed were tossed into the landfill, and

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Speaker 3: there was concern that they could still pose a health hazard.

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Speaker 3: That site wasn't in the general area where Joe thought

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Speaker 3: the games were, but still had to be investigated with

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Speaker 3: air samples taken by an environmental firm. The city also

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Speaker 3: had to be reassured that some buried melathion, a pesticide,

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Speaker 3: wasn't present in the barrels nearby, or that munitions from

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Speaker 3: White Sand's missile base wouldn't be dug up and explode.

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00:12:25,162 --> 00:12:28,322
Speaker 3: This took Joe, believe it or not, a few years

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Speaker 3: to navigate.

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Speaker 1: I got other things to be doing, and then when

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Speaker 1: the environmental start hit me on it. It was like

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00:12:34,802 --> 00:12:38,042
Speaker 1: it was almost like again another challenge, like you say

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Speaker 1: I can't do it, Well, I'm going to do it.

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Speaker 1: So that's what happened was is I think they actually

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Speaker 1: helped give me the motivation to continue where I might

225
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Speaker 1: have got bored with the story.

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Speaker 3: By that time, he had connected with the documentary project

227
00:12:52,362 --> 00:12:56,202
Speaker 3: founded by Fuel Entertainment and production company Light Box. They

228
00:12:56,242 --> 00:12:59,282
Speaker 3: wanted to make a movie about the excavation, hoping to

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00:12:59,322 --> 00:13:02,522
Speaker 3: either debunk the urban legend or prove it to be true.

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Speaker 3: Fuel Entertainment received permission from the city council in twenty

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Speaker 3: thirteen to dig. That project, which was eventually funded in

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Speaker 3: part by Microsoft to use his content for their Xbox

233
00:13:13,442 --> 00:13:16,882
Speaker 3: service would be able to help subsidize the effort. The

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00:13:16,922 --> 00:13:21,282
Speaker 3: dig wound up costing about fifty thousand dollars. Before the

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Speaker 3: actual dig, Joe and the crew used ground penetrating radar,

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00:13:25,642 --> 00:13:29,762
Speaker 3: which revealed between sixty and seventy different trenches, but the

237
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Speaker 3: city wouldn't just let him drill test holes in everyone.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of a dangerous situation, so they told me

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Speaker 1: I had to get it down to two and I

240
00:13:39,522 --> 00:13:42,162
Speaker 1: was stuck until my wife said something silly and said

241
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Speaker 1: what about the scrap book? And I was like, what

242
00:13:44,642 --> 00:13:47,282
Speaker 1: about the scrap book? And I've been self employed since

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one. She made scrapbooks of all the companies

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Speaker 1: we had different things going on. So I went up

245
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Speaker 1: in the attic and got this scrapbook from Alamo Wasaye,

246
00:13:55,002 --> 00:13:58,362
Speaker 1: the company that we're talking about, And in there was

247
00:13:58,362 --> 00:14:02,522
Speaker 1: actual some old polaroids showing they weren't about Atari. They

248
00:14:02,562 --> 00:14:05,882
Speaker 1: were polaroids about doing improvements and construction at the landfill

249
00:14:05,922 --> 00:14:09,042
Speaker 1: out there. And it didn't show me where Atari was,

250
00:14:09,082 --> 00:14:11,122
Speaker 1: but it gave me some angles of some buildings in

251
00:14:11,162 --> 00:14:14,762
Speaker 1: the background. I had the l Paso Times, the only

252
00:14:14,922 --> 00:14:18,282
Speaker 1: photograph of the event I had that I took that

253
00:14:18,682 --> 00:14:21,322
Speaker 1: put them all on a Google image with clear overlays,

254
00:14:21,522 --> 00:14:24,922
Speaker 1: threw straight lines to all these lines started to intersect.

255
00:14:25,882 --> 00:14:27,722
Speaker 1: That gave me an idea. I got it down to two.

256
00:14:27,842 --> 00:14:30,522
Speaker 1: Then the Environment department at that point said okay, you

257
00:14:30,562 --> 00:14:31,802
Speaker 1: can do the test holes now.

258
00:14:33,162 --> 00:14:35,882
Speaker 3: The test holes revealed garbage that could date the trench

259
00:14:36,042 --> 00:14:40,122
Speaker 3: to September nineteen eighty three, some newspapers that kind of thing.

260
00:14:40,762 --> 00:14:44,202
Speaker 3: Then came socks and care bears and bumper stickers and

261
00:14:44,242 --> 00:14:47,402
Speaker 3: all sorts of other trash, so Joe knew they were

262
00:14:47,562 --> 00:14:51,522
Speaker 3: likely in the right place. To be clear, this wasn't

263
00:14:51,562 --> 00:14:54,882
Speaker 3: a one person operation. There was the documentary team as

264
00:14:54,882 --> 00:14:58,802
Speaker 3: well as cultural archaeologists and equipment operators, but it's also

265
00:14:58,922 --> 00:15:02,402
Speaker 3: true that without Joe's expertise, none of them were probably

266
00:15:02,402 --> 00:15:06,922
Speaker 3: going to accomplish much. So in April twenty fourteen, Joe

267
00:15:06,922 --> 00:15:11,722
Speaker 3: Oh and the crew started digging and digging. A small

268
00:15:11,762 --> 00:15:14,482
Speaker 3: crowd of curious gamers was roped off, though no one

269
00:15:14,562 --> 00:15:18,642
Speaker 3: threatened them with a broom handle this time. Howard Scott Warshaw,

270
00:15:18,762 --> 00:15:22,642
Speaker 3: who programmed ET, was invited to witness it, presumably as

271
00:15:22,682 --> 00:15:28,122
Speaker 3: some kind of therapeutic closure. And then there was the concrete.

272
00:15:28,282 --> 00:15:31,202
Speaker 3: Though there wasn't much of it to smash through, it

273
00:15:31,202 --> 00:15:34,162
Speaker 3: didn't seem like much was poured, just enough to somewhat

274
00:15:34,202 --> 00:15:38,482
Speaker 3: discourage teenaged looters in nineteen eighty three, and then games

275
00:15:38,482 --> 00:15:42,282
Speaker 3: began getting pulled up. There was ET, of course, but

276
00:15:42,522 --> 00:15:47,362
Speaker 3: plenty of other games, good games too, Centipede, Raiders of

277
00:15:47,402 --> 00:15:50,402
Speaker 3: the Lost Arc Adventure, and a lot of them in

278
00:15:50,442 --> 00:15:53,922
Speaker 3: good condition. Some of them were even still in multi packs,

279
00:15:54,322 --> 00:15:57,882
Speaker 3: meaning they were either headed to or coming back from retailers.

280
00:15:58,642 --> 00:16:01,242
Speaker 3: That was in sharp contrast to a tory's claim that

281
00:16:01,322 --> 00:16:05,522
Speaker 3: the games were the equivalent of rotten vegetables. In all,

282
00:16:06,002 --> 00:16:10,242
Speaker 3: Joe retrieved one thousand, three hundred and eighty eight games,

283
00:16:10,402 --> 00:16:14,562
Speaker 3: along with consoles and controllers. The story was absolutely true.

284
00:16:15,242 --> 00:16:18,642
Speaker 3: Atari had buried the sins of their gluttony in Alamgordo.

285
00:16:19,562 --> 00:16:22,442
Speaker 3: But when the cameras were off and the documentary team left,

286
00:16:22,922 --> 00:16:26,322
Speaker 3: there was an outstanding question, what do you do with

287
00:16:26,522 --> 00:16:29,922
Speaker 3: one thousand, three hundred and eighty eight foul smelling games

288
00:16:29,962 --> 00:16:39,082
Speaker 3: you've liberated from a landfill. About one hundred of the

289
00:16:39,122 --> 00:16:41,882
Speaker 3: games were given to crew members of the movie, but

290
00:16:41,962 --> 00:16:46,322
Speaker 3: the vast majority belonged to the city of Alamagordo. These

291
00:16:46,362 --> 00:16:50,522
Speaker 3: games weren't worthless, not even close. Any Atari game will

292
00:16:50,522 --> 00:16:53,762
Speaker 3: fetch at least a couple of dollars, but certain titles,

293
00:16:54,042 --> 00:16:58,922
Speaker 3: especially rare or packaged ones, can be collector's items. This stash,

294
00:16:59,002 --> 00:17:02,842
Speaker 3: in particular was unique. It was a part of Atari's history,

295
00:17:03,482 --> 00:17:07,722
Speaker 3: really part of its grand finale. So by their stench,

296
00:17:08,242 --> 00:17:11,762
Speaker 3: Joe knew they'd be appealing to vintage game collectors, but

297
00:17:11,842 --> 00:17:14,802
Speaker 3: it turned out that some were already up on eBay

298
00:17:15,522 --> 00:17:17,482
Speaker 3: just hours after he had dug them up.

299
00:17:19,042 --> 00:17:20,962
Speaker 1: When I looked on eBay, there was fakes on there.

300
00:17:21,162 --> 00:17:22,922
Speaker 1: You could tell there were fakes, you know, they didn't

301
00:17:22,962 --> 00:17:26,202
Speaker 1: weren't even good fakes. Somebody had taken some Atari games

302
00:17:26,242 --> 00:17:28,442
Speaker 1: and boxes and just ran over with a pickup truck.

303
00:17:28,482 --> 00:17:32,122
Speaker 1: You can see the tire prints on the game box,

304
00:17:32,642 --> 00:17:34,762
Speaker 1: and they were trying to sell them as from the

305
00:17:34,762 --> 00:17:35,562
Speaker 1: Atari gig.

306
00:17:36,242 --> 00:17:39,722
Speaker 3: Naturally, some of the games were crushed, the real ones,

307
00:17:39,842 --> 00:17:43,722
Speaker 3: not just the fake ones, but others were incredibly well

308
00:17:43,762 --> 00:17:47,602
Speaker 3: preserved thanks to the New Mexico climate, and so Joe

309
00:17:47,682 --> 00:17:49,722
Speaker 3: began putting the real games up on eBay.

310
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Speaker 1: So I sold eight hundred games, and at that point

311
00:17:54,562 --> 00:17:58,482
Speaker 1: they went to eighteen different countries and forty seven of

312
00:17:58,522 --> 00:18:01,202
Speaker 1: the United States States. Because I, like I said, I

313
00:18:01,242 --> 00:18:04,042
Speaker 1: tracked everywhere every one of them went. So they went

314
00:18:04,082 --> 00:18:09,802
Speaker 1: to Brazil and Morocco and Indonesia and France and Germany, Italy,

315
00:18:10,282 --> 00:18:13,202
Speaker 1: all over the world. It was just amazing how people

316
00:18:13,202 --> 00:18:15,322
Speaker 1: wanted these and the story.

317
00:18:16,162 --> 00:18:19,242
Speaker 3: Some sold for a little money, some for a lot.

318
00:18:19,962 --> 00:18:24,122
Speaker 1: So on the cartridge themselves, they were selling them about

319
00:18:24,122 --> 00:18:27,242
Speaker 1: about one thousand dollars apiece. At the lowest was eight

320
00:18:27,282 --> 00:18:31,642
Speaker 1: hundred dollars et in the Box. The first round, they

321
00:18:31,682 --> 00:18:35,202
Speaker 1: averaged a little about twelve hundred and the highest paid

322
00:18:35,202 --> 00:18:37,522
Speaker 1: at that time was one three hundred and twenty five

323
00:18:37,562 --> 00:18:41,122
Speaker 1: dollars for an ET in the box. Is individual out

324
00:18:41,122 --> 00:18:43,882
Speaker 1: of Portland, Oregon that paid the highest for one. So

325
00:18:44,522 --> 00:18:46,522
Speaker 1: ET's were in one thousand dollars range all the way

326
00:18:46,562 --> 00:18:50,122
Speaker 1: across the board, nothing less, and the others raised anywhere

327
00:18:50,162 --> 00:18:53,002
Speaker 1: from some fifty dollars ones up. In fact, I had

328
00:18:53,002 --> 00:18:54,722
Speaker 1: a lot of components that I didn't even know what

329
00:18:54,762 --> 00:18:57,962
Speaker 1: they were, internal components and some were just the cartie's case,

330
00:18:58,002 --> 00:19:01,042
Speaker 1: but no components musted up. I even bagged those up,

331
00:19:01,082 --> 00:19:02,162
Speaker 1: said twenty five dollars.

332
00:19:02,802 --> 00:19:06,082
Speaker 3: Not all of the games were sold, considering their cultural

333
00:19:06,202 --> 00:19:08,722
Speaker 3: value given away to museums around.

334
00:19:08,522 --> 00:19:12,322
Speaker 1: The world, you know, Frankfurt, Germany, Rome, they're ten blocks

335
00:19:12,362 --> 00:19:15,242
Speaker 1: from the Vatican in Rome at the Bigamos, They're in

336
00:19:15,242 --> 00:19:19,242
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, the Henry Ford, the Strong Ontario, and so

337
00:19:20,042 --> 00:19:23,122
Speaker 1: anything that was museum related, I'd send them packages of

338
00:19:23,402 --> 00:19:26,762
Speaker 1: you know, six or seven games documentation.

339
00:19:27,922 --> 00:19:30,842
Speaker 3: That first sale brought in around one hundred and eight

340
00:19:30,882 --> 00:19:35,322
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. In twenty twenty two, Joe dipped into his

341
00:19:35,402 --> 00:19:38,402
Speaker 3: second batch of two hundred and eighty games, and again

342
00:19:38,722 --> 00:19:42,122
Speaker 3: collectors were happy to oblige him, so.

343
00:19:42,122 --> 00:19:44,202
Speaker 1: They sold two to three times what they were going

344
00:19:44,242 --> 00:19:46,802
Speaker 1: for the first time, ET went up to twenty four

345
00:19:46,882 --> 00:19:50,322
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. The ET did jump from the high at

346
00:19:50,402 --> 00:19:53,002
Speaker 1: one time at thirteen jumped to twenty four hundred dollars.

347
00:19:53,642 --> 00:19:55,322
Speaker 1: And I doubt if you can touch one now for

348
00:19:55,402 --> 00:19:57,402
Speaker 1: less than four or five thousand dollars, if you can

349
00:19:57,442 --> 00:20:00,922
Speaker 1: find one, because the other thing is very few were

350
00:20:00,962 --> 00:20:04,322
Speaker 1: being resold. You know, these people that bought them wanted

351
00:20:04,362 --> 00:20:06,562
Speaker 1: them for a lot of reasons, and that was another

352
00:20:06,562 --> 00:20:07,722
Speaker 1: interest think part of the story.

353
00:20:07,762 --> 00:20:13,562
Speaker 3: Too good point, after all, why buy literal trash games that,

354
00:20:13,762 --> 00:20:16,482
Speaker 3: if they were actually in better shape, might cost a

355
00:20:16,522 --> 00:20:17,082
Speaker 3: lot less.

356
00:20:18,042 --> 00:20:21,202
Speaker 1: Why did people buy them? Individual and Rhode Island, who

357
00:20:21,562 --> 00:20:24,562
Speaker 1: had several palsy was in the shriner's hospital, told me

358
00:20:24,602 --> 00:20:26,762
Speaker 1: he played Atari while he was in there. The nurses

359
00:20:26,802 --> 00:20:29,202
Speaker 1: made him play Atari, which he loved doing anyway, And

360
00:20:29,242 --> 00:20:30,762
Speaker 1: I said, oh, yeah, just keep you busy so he

361
00:20:30,802 --> 00:20:33,162
Speaker 1: didn't drive the nurses crazy. He says, no, it's a

362
00:20:33,202 --> 00:20:36,442
Speaker 1: medical tool hand eye coordination. They would actually use it

363
00:20:36,482 --> 00:20:38,482
Speaker 1: as a medical tool to get kids to use it

364
00:20:38,482 --> 00:20:40,402
Speaker 1: to get their hands and their eyes to work together.

365
00:20:41,322 --> 00:20:45,002
Speaker 3: All told, roughly two hundred thousand dollars was raised from

366
00:20:45,002 --> 00:20:48,162
Speaker 3: the sale of the game cartridges, but the money didn't

367
00:20:48,202 --> 00:20:51,002
Speaker 3: go into his pocket. The games were a part of

368
00:20:51,002 --> 00:20:54,442
Speaker 3: Ala mcgordo lure as much as they were Atari's. The

369
00:20:54,442 --> 00:20:56,762
Speaker 3: funds were put back into the city to address some

370
00:20:56,802 --> 00:20:59,842
Speaker 3: long standing projects they had never gotten the necessary money

371
00:20:59,842 --> 00:21:03,522
Speaker 3: to tackle. Joe and his wife, Deborah, are both volunteer

372
00:21:03,562 --> 00:21:08,042
Speaker 3: members of the Tularosa Basin Historical Society, which is dedicated

373
00:21:08,042 --> 00:21:11,602
Speaker 3: to preserving local history. The reason Joe pursued the dig

374
00:21:11,802 --> 00:21:14,202
Speaker 3: was not only for the challenge, but because of a

375
00:21:14,282 --> 00:21:15,802
Speaker 3: deal he struck with the city.

376
00:21:16,962 --> 00:21:18,402
Speaker 1: I just went and said, here's what I'm willing to

377
00:21:18,402 --> 00:21:20,922
Speaker 1: do to tell this story. It's kind of an interesting story,

378
00:21:21,082 --> 00:21:24,002
Speaker 1: publicity wise and everything. And then as I went through it,

379
00:21:24,042 --> 00:21:26,402
Speaker 1: I dropped that and said, listen, I'll find them as

380
00:21:26,402 --> 00:21:29,002
Speaker 1: long as I can decide where the money goes. I

381
00:21:29,042 --> 00:21:31,802
Speaker 1: don't really want the money. What I want is the

382
00:21:31,842 --> 00:21:36,202
Speaker 1: money to go into the things in Almagordo, not potholes

383
00:21:36,362 --> 00:21:40,082
Speaker 1: or fixing roads or anything like that. I wanted something

384
00:21:40,522 --> 00:21:42,762
Speaker 1: when we're done that there's still something there that you

385
00:21:42,802 --> 00:21:46,082
Speaker 1: can know that Tatari paid for it. This whole adventure

386
00:21:46,162 --> 00:21:48,962
Speaker 1: paid the deal. So that's the deal I negotiated with

387
00:21:48,962 --> 00:21:51,562
Speaker 1: the city. I'll do all this. When the money comes in,

388
00:21:52,122 --> 00:21:54,482
Speaker 1: I'll tell you where the money's going to go, and

389
00:21:54,522 --> 00:21:56,722
Speaker 1: then that money would go there. And that's what we

390
00:21:56,762 --> 00:21:58,002
Speaker 1: did on that.

391
00:21:58,842 --> 00:22:01,722
Speaker 3: This and that turned out to be a lot. Some

392
00:22:01,842 --> 00:22:04,682
Speaker 3: of the money went to Alan mcgordo, including money meant

393
00:22:04,722 --> 00:22:07,402
Speaker 3: to recoup the cost of the dig, but the rest

394
00:22:07,442 --> 00:22:08,682
Speaker 3: went to local projects.

395
00:22:09,442 --> 00:22:12,362
Speaker 1: What I did on the first round of eight hundred games.

396
00:22:12,842 --> 00:22:16,882
Speaker 1: Money went to the albal Gorda Library for some improvements there,

397
00:22:17,202 --> 00:22:20,082
Speaker 1: to the police department for training equipment and other things

398
00:22:20,282 --> 00:22:23,242
Speaker 1: that they needed, things that they normally in their budget

399
00:22:23,282 --> 00:22:25,362
Speaker 1: and they have to really scrounge to get enough money

400
00:22:25,402 --> 00:22:27,602
Speaker 1: to buy, and so this gave them that flush fund

401
00:22:27,602 --> 00:22:31,042
Speaker 1: to buy stuff that they needed but could never afford.

402
00:22:31,402 --> 00:22:33,762
Speaker 1: The zoo took an old building, renovated it into a

403
00:22:33,762 --> 00:22:37,522
Speaker 1: new monkey barn in which we have new Brazilian monkeys

404
00:22:37,522 --> 00:22:39,642
Speaker 1: and some other things there in there. And then money

405
00:22:39,642 --> 00:22:42,602
Speaker 1: to the historical society, the local historic society, to the

406
00:22:42,642 --> 00:22:45,882
Speaker 1: local museum. So it's distributed that time around to those

407
00:22:45,962 --> 00:22:47,082
Speaker 1: four entities.

408
00:22:48,202 --> 00:22:51,002
Speaker 3: The games also helped with the ongoing restoration of the

409
00:22:51,082 --> 00:22:54,922
Speaker 3: Dudley School, which was originally established to teach English to

410
00:22:54,962 --> 00:22:58,082
Speaker 3: Spanish speaking students before they moved on to public schools,

411
00:22:58,562 --> 00:23:02,882
Speaker 3: effectively segregating them for a period of time. Full desegregation

412
00:23:03,002 --> 00:23:07,242
Speaker 3: for all students didn't happen until nineteen forty nine. Hopes

413
00:23:07,242 --> 00:23:10,482
Speaker 3: the property can have a new different life, both as

414
00:23:10,522 --> 00:23:13,362
Speaker 3: a community hub and a place to learn about its

415
00:23:13,442 --> 00:23:14,442
Speaker 3: challenging history.

416
00:23:15,402 --> 00:23:17,482
Speaker 1: It was on the condemnation list, was about to be

417
00:23:17,562 --> 00:23:20,482
Speaker 1: torn down. It's an old adobe from that time period.

418
00:23:20,602 --> 00:23:22,722
Speaker 1: We able to get it off that, and then I

419
00:23:22,722 --> 00:23:24,602
Speaker 1: was able to make I raise all the funding I

420
00:23:24,642 --> 00:23:27,042
Speaker 1: needed to get the thing, not just the Atari money,

421
00:23:27,122 --> 00:23:31,882
Speaker 1: the National Endowment money, city money, donation money that we're

422
00:23:31,922 --> 00:23:34,842
Speaker 1: actually restoring the whole thing into a community center and park.

423
00:23:34,922 --> 00:23:37,922
Speaker 1: So it'll be the Dudley School Community Center and park now,

424
00:23:38,202 --> 00:23:40,482
Speaker 1: and there will also be a museum telling that story,

425
00:23:40,642 --> 00:23:44,162
Speaker 1: telling why this building, why about that time?

426
00:23:45,682 --> 00:23:48,882
Speaker 3: Today, Joe is down to just a handful of cartridges,

427
00:23:49,602 --> 00:23:52,282
Speaker 3: about one hundred and twenty of them. Joe things still

428
00:23:52,322 --> 00:23:56,282
Speaker 3: remain in storage. He personally kept about a dozen, but

429
00:23:56,322 --> 00:23:58,602
Speaker 3: he's not much of a gamer, so he chose games

430
00:23:58,642 --> 00:24:03,402
Speaker 3: he remembers from what was popular in arcades, Space Invaders, Centipede,

431
00:24:03,882 --> 00:24:06,802
Speaker 3: and of course he had to grab Etea And no,

432
00:24:07,122 --> 00:24:10,922
Speaker 3: there's no chance that landfill contains the missing sword Quest prizes.

433
00:24:11,642 --> 00:24:13,722
Speaker 1: Now we didn't find anything like that. Now, we found

434
00:24:13,762 --> 00:24:16,522
Speaker 1: the various sword Quest because if they all say sword Quest,

435
00:24:16,562 --> 00:24:18,122
Speaker 1: but you got to look a little clos there's Earth,

436
00:24:18,162 --> 00:24:22,042
Speaker 1: there's water, and there's different versions of it. And we

437
00:24:22,122 --> 00:24:25,482
Speaker 1: had three of the four versions that came out because

438
00:24:25,482 --> 00:24:28,482
Speaker 1: we did have I had people, but you just brought

439
00:24:28,562 --> 00:24:31,962
Speaker 1: up the same thing that were hardcore sword Quest individuals

440
00:24:31,962 --> 00:24:34,122
Speaker 1: that had to have that game. That was another top

441
00:24:34,162 --> 00:24:38,402
Speaker 1: selling one because of that, you know that situation because

442
00:24:38,602 --> 00:24:41,042
Speaker 1: none of the other games had variations, you know what

443
00:24:41,042 --> 00:24:43,802
Speaker 1: I mean. The sword Quest was four different types of games,

444
00:24:44,322 --> 00:24:46,362
Speaker 1: but it was still sword Quest. No, none of the

445
00:24:46,402 --> 00:24:50,042
Speaker 1: other games did that. And so now I'd heard about it.

446
00:24:50,362 --> 00:24:52,642
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way that something like that would

447
00:24:52,642 --> 00:24:54,682
Speaker 1: have ended up in the warehouses in El Paso.

448
00:24:55,242 --> 00:24:57,962
Speaker 3: According to Joe, there may be as many as eight

449
00:24:58,082 --> 00:25:01,602
Speaker 3: hundred thousand games left in the landfill, but the city

450
00:25:01,682 --> 00:25:05,002
Speaker 3: is never going to authorize another Atari dig that's why

451
00:25:05,042 --> 00:25:10,522
Speaker 3: collectors paid a premium. Supply for an Alamgordo original is limited.

452
00:25:10,882 --> 00:25:13,762
Speaker 1: So yeah, I know exactly how many came out. There's

453
00:25:13,762 --> 00:25:16,242
Speaker 1: still seven hundred and ninety two thousand more down there.

454
00:25:16,242 --> 00:25:18,682
Speaker 1: But the dig will never happen again. The environ department

455
00:25:18,722 --> 00:25:20,962
Speaker 1: in the city both said no one will ever be

456
00:25:21,002 --> 00:25:23,722
Speaker 1: allowed to go, and I wouldn't assist anybody if they

457
00:25:23,762 --> 00:25:26,962
Speaker 1: wanted to anyway, because that would ruin the value of

458
00:25:27,002 --> 00:25:28,682
Speaker 1: the ones that the people that bought.

459
00:25:30,202 --> 00:25:34,762
Speaker 3: In a way, Atari collapsed, so Alamgordo could rise a little.

460
00:25:34,882 --> 00:25:37,962
Speaker 3: At least. The games might all be gone, but their

461
00:25:38,042 --> 00:25:42,602
Speaker 3: legacy lives on in Alamgordo's historical buildings and community attractions.

462
00:25:43,202 --> 00:25:47,642
Speaker 3: And yes, in the unique smell of an original Alamagordo

463
00:25:47,762 --> 00:25:48,842
Speaker 3: Atari game.

464
00:25:49,362 --> 00:25:51,002
Speaker 1: You'll know it came out of the dump because it

465
00:25:51,042 --> 00:25:57,602
Speaker 1: still has that that smell, basically muskie garbage. Again, the

466
00:25:57,642 --> 00:25:59,442
Speaker 1: garbage didn't make it in it, but it was buried

467
00:25:59,522 --> 00:26:01,962
Speaker 1: under twenty six feet of garbage over the top of it.

468
00:26:02,242 --> 00:26:04,722
Speaker 1: And we have them in the local museum and I

469
00:26:04,922 --> 00:26:07,322
Speaker 1: go down there right now pull one out. When we

470
00:26:07,322 --> 00:26:09,002
Speaker 1: open up the glass doors. There's a little bit of

471
00:26:09,042 --> 00:26:12,082
Speaker 1: a whift that still comes out, and that's many years now,

472
00:26:12,442 --> 00:26:16,362
Speaker 1: nine years later, so now it's something that doesn't really

473
00:26:16,402 --> 00:26:18,802
Speaker 1: go completely away, but it's controllable.

474
00:26:19,642 --> 00:26:21,602
Speaker 3: So if you're ever in the market for an official

475
00:26:21,642 --> 00:26:26,282
Speaker 3: Alamagordo atari game, do a quality check and make sure

476
00:26:26,362 --> 00:26:27,802
Speaker 3: it smells terrible.

477
00:26:33,322 --> 00:26:35,922
Speaker 4: The Legend of sword Quest is a production of iHeart

478
00:26:35,962 --> 00:26:39,202
Speaker 4: Podcasts and School of Humans. This episode was written by

479
00:26:39,282 --> 00:26:43,162
Speaker 4: Jake Rosson and hosted by Jamie Loftus producers are Miranda

480
00:26:43,162 --> 00:26:48,442
Speaker 4: Hawkins and Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, ELC Crowley,

481
00:26:48,682 --> 00:26:52,602
Speaker 4: Brandon Barr, and Jason English. Our show editor is Mary Doo.

482
00:26:53,122 --> 00:26:57,082
Speaker 4: Audio engineering by Graham Gibson, Research and BacT checking by

483
00:26:57,122 --> 00:27:01,522
Speaker 4: Austin Thompson and Jake Rosson. Original score by Jesse Niswanger.

484
00:27:02,282 --> 00:27:05,762
Speaker 4: This episode was sound designed by Jonathan Washington, with additional

485
00:27:05,882 --> 00:27:09,962
Speaker 4: editing by Josh Fisher, her mixing and mastering by Miranda Hawkins.

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00:27:10,482 --> 00:27:15,482
Speaker 4: Show logo by Lucy Quintonia