Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.

[mos6507]

Stupid edit button that isn't there...

 

 

-S

 

If you look closely at those shapes they do look very much like dust-covered silver Atari boxes with a darker stripe running through them above the midlevel point. On the one on the left I can faintly see what looks most likely to be the screenshot graphic from the back of the box:

 

 

 

If we had a 1st generation scan of the article it would probably reveal a lot more detail.

[Inky]

LOL@ MayDay!

[moycon]

I do think the best approach is to get a cable network or some news outlet to do a formal investigation and get local permission to do a one-time excavation.

 

Why bother, You just said it happened for a fact?

 

Of course it's very possible it happened. I'm just trying to figure out why... If lots of people were onsite, and we know they had cameras (based on the information we do have), why aren't haven't there been more witnesses (This stories been around the world and back in every conceivable media available) and why is the photographic evidence so crappy? Don't tell me those 3 beat up boxes are (Ahem) concrete proof millions of perfectly good Atari carts were buried. I can't even tell what those boxes are? Atari boxes? Cigarette boxes? Tampon boxes? Holy crap... if it were me, and I wanted proof that I buried millions of cart in a dump I know I'd take a crap pic of 3 boxes that could be anything. Why do the obvious and take some great shots of it? Let everyone know, hey we're writing this stuff off, look we're crushing it. Look we're pouring concreat on it. Maybe they passed a law because they knew Atari was full of shit and getting away with it and wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. That makes sense too. LOL

 

I encourage the pursuit of more information! Let's all let the Stingray/Spud website grow...... To mammoth proportions. Sooner or later the evidence will overflow and I'll say. "Ok yep it happened"

 

LOL I had no idea so many peoples well being, rested on the fact that I accept inferior evidence. I will try harder going forward to believe.

[moycon]

LOL@ MayDay!

 

Yeah that was pretty good.

 

Obviously E.T.'s would want to bring back bologna sammich's.

They.... (The E.T.'s not the sammich) are supposed to be UBER-intelligent.

 

[Stingray]

So has anyone managed to contact the world famous M.E. McQuiddy yet? An interview with the reporter who actually wrote the stories would be great, even if it's a quick over the phone interview.

 

I added Spud's latest two videos to the page. I also made a transcription of the interview for those who don't want to bother with downloading 40 MB for what amounts to a few paragraphs of text.

 

There were a few places here and there where I just couldn't make out what the guy was saying. Spud, when you get a chance, read the interview and maybe you can fill in the blanks for me.

 

You can read the transcript here.

[sku_u]

LOL I had no idea so many peoples well being' date=' rested on the fact that I accept inferior evidence. I will try harder going forward to believe.

[/quote']

 

The truth is out there Agent Scully.

 

[mos6507]

Why bother, You just said it happened for a fact?

 

I did, but some people other than me are having a hard time accepting it.

 

Of course it's very possible it happened. I'm just trying to figure out why... If lots of people were onsite, and we know they had cameras (based on the information we do have), why aren't haven't there been more witnesses

 

Because not everyone who witnessed this is enough of an Atari nut to feel the need to proactively proclaim to the world that they saw it happen. It's just a huge tax writeoff, nothing that other companies haven't done before or since. The witnesses need to be solicited first.

 

It means a lot to US because we were kids and it symbolized the death of the golden age of Atari. But to the older generation who witnessed or participated in it, it has less meaning.

[moycon]

You chose to not comment on the other questions I raised?

 

Why...If you accept the fact that reporters were onsite, with camera's, isn't there more damning photographic evidence? These picture's don't show a thing conclusive.

 

Atari was losing cash hand over foot. Why spend the $ to bury perfectly good surplus just so they could get a write off (And how much was this write off? Does anyone know? Was it enough to cover the cost of burial?) No I think a better theory is they SAID they buried a bunch of carts, with no tangible proof, (perhaps they just sent a truck load of old crap equipment out there (lots of companies just trash outdated equipment that's not worth anything to anyone or maybe is defective) had a good friend whip up a story, other papers not wanting to let a rival paper have the scoop, printed their own story. They get their write-off without spending much at all. Makes just as much sense, and is as easy to accept as assuming this happened, and there's really no proof other then some news stories with inconclusive pics slapped on the article. If they passed a law stating you couldn't do this anymore shortly after, it just supports the theory. Atari pulled a fast one, the powers that be stepped in and said. Ok fine you got us, we cant prove you didn't do what you say, because we're not going to spend the time and $ to dig up the dump to try and fine a company that's going in the shitter anyways,but guess what, you can't do it again.

 

I think if I was a company, and I actually did bury millions of carts for a tax write off, there would be no question it happened. Photographs, video, audio, sketches, paintings, the works.

 

Perhaps this evidence will come to pass, the truth is out there, dig...dig like the wind.

[moycon]

One more point to note. To date there have been NO witnesses.

That interview clearly stated that the guy was told by his pals it happened. (Unless there was another interview I missed.) Big deal. I'm being told by people that it happened. If you believed everything people tell you, especially as a kid, yer crazy. When I was that age I told people I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert...I hadn't. I told people I had kissed Rosa Laspina...I hadn't. I once told people if you got past a certain stage on the Apple 2 version of Zaxxon that the screen changed to a 1st person perspective and it's like a whole new game....It doesn't. I told people alot of things.

 

Because not everyone who witnessed this is enough of an Atari nut to feel the need to proactively proclaim to the world that they saw it happen.

 

No, these kids were just willing to get their parents to take them to the dump to dig for games. They aren't Atari nuts.

 

A lot of people keep mentioning the fact that this would be a non issue if Howard Scott Warshaw hadn't said he didn't think it happened....That it wasn't mentioned around the office. Fact is I'm not basing this on what he said. I don't even know the guy and certainly have no loyalty to him. What he says is just icing friends.

 

Ok I'm done. Unless anyone else has a problem with me accepting the evidence presented?

I welcome the challenge. Convince me.

[Artlover]

especially when supported by real newspaper articles in a real newspaper.

Again, it has been said time and time again, just because it appeared in a real news paper doesn't mean the story is true. News papers run false articles all the time. Same with TV & radio & books & magazines, and every form of communication that exists. Humans have been telling stories of entertainment and flatout lying to one another from the first day we learned to share thoughts with one another with cave paintings and drawing in the dirt with sticks.

 

There are just way too many ways to cross-verify this event

So why hasn't anyone bothered to do it then?

 

You could probably track down one of the legislators that passed the law and ask them why they passed it.  In theory you could find one of the workers who dozed the carts, even.  Or you could try to dig up old IRS records where Atari claimed the tax writeoff on the cartridges (assuming it's not considered private data).

Yup, sure could. Same question, why hasn't any one DONE IT?

 

You could find the concrete company, or the trucking company, or the dump site and find records. Someone had to pay for the concrete and the trucking company, and the dump fees. And there had to be reciepts and some record of this. There had to be better photos or witnesses to this event. This was afterall for a tax write off and they demand documentation & proof. Atari wasn't some mom & pop backdoor operation. They were a major business, they'd have documentation too.

 

So where is any of THAT evidence? The real definative unquestionable proof that WOULD exist if this was real? It's been HOW MANY years now? All someone needs to do is hire a detective or a lawyer to search the record archives. Simple as that. Why is it the ONLY evidence any one can actually dig up are grainy photos of random garbage that could be anything and questionable articles from questionable sources that came second hand no less?

 

You can believe it's a UFO all you want, and sware up and down that is what it is, but it's still just a out of focus close-up of a street light. You believe it because you WANT to, not because it's real.

 

Not knocking spud or anything. He's apparently done a lot of work on this. Props to him for that, but the sad truth is it still doesn't tell us much more then what we've already seen, and doesn't answer any questions or prove anything any more then what we've already seen either. We're still in the exact same spot we were years ago. Split into two groups of people;

Group A: Those who insist it's real and are willing to believe any photo of a non descript rectangle is an ET box.

Group B: Those who don't and want some tangiable evidence that would exist and be fairly easy to track down if it was true.

 

All we got are stories and ufo photos. If it's real then real evidence exists. Someone should try showing us some of that.

[Nukey Shay]

Why...If you accept the fact that reporters were onsite, with camera's, isn't there more damning photographic evidence? These picture's don't show a thing conclusive.

Because in the world of big business...write-offs aren't such a big deal (well...maybe when they are occurring. But after that...out of sight, out of mind). It's just an end-all measure to reduce inventory overhead that costs the company money every single day that it remains unsold. Think of people and time keeping track of the inventory. Then think of the cost of the warehouse space. Then consider they can get a dollar-for-dollar production cost write-off by reducing dead inventory. This isn't rocket science.

 

 

Atari was losing cash hand over foot. Why spend the $ to bury perfectly good surplus just so they could get a write off

Because the were losing money every single day...and it would have cost them more to deal with the inventory in any other way. It goes away period...and no ghosts to deal with later.

 

 

(And how much was this write off? Does anyone know?

The production cost of ~n truckloads...OR the maximum $ amount allowed by the auditors to be used as a write-off. Whichever is less.

 

 

Was it enough to cover the cost of burial?)

The act of reducing the bottom line by millions makes a one fell sweep of inventory like this to amount to peanuts. No, they didn't actually GAIN any money...inventory reduction is damage control - so that it won't continue to cost them money. There's a difference.

 

 

No I think a better theory is they SAID they buried a bunch of carts, with no tangible proof, (perhaps they just sent a truck load of old crap equipment out there (lots of companies just trash outdated equipment that's not worth anything to anyone or maybe is defective) had a good friend whip up a story, other papers not wanting to let a rival paper have the scoop, printed their own story. They get their write-off without spending much at all. Makes just as much sense, and is as easy to accept as assuming this happened, and there's really no proof other then some news stories with inconclusive pics slapped on the article. If they passed a law stating you couldn't do this anymore shortly after, it just supports the theory. Atari pulled a fast one, the powers that be stepped in and said. Ok fine you got us, we cant prove you didn't do what you say, because we're not going to spend the time and $ to dig up the dump to try and fine a company that's going in the shitter anyways,but guess what, you can't do it again.

They'd still have the auditors to contend with...and Atari had plenty of unhappy investors that would have loved it if they were playing around with the books (it would be an opportunity to sue them to get back their capital that Atari was wasting). Which sounds more plausible now?

 

 

I think if I was a company, and I actually did bury millions of carts for a tax write off, there would be no question it happened. Photographs, video, audio, sketches, paintings, the works.

Again, write-offs are not something that companies are proud of. It shows mismanagement and general irresponsibility, and the less that HAS to be documented about it (to satisfy the audit), the better. When I did it, the evidence had to remain for a period of 7 years...after which, even the in-house documents were also destroyed.

[Joey Kay]

I don't really have CONCRETE evidence, just some speculation to "fuel the fire" so to speak...

 

Atari was losing cash hand over foot. Why spend the $ to bury perfectly good surplus just so they could get a write off

 

I guess the problem here was that this wasn't "perfectly good surplus". It was unsaleable merchandise.

 

It is well known that Atari manufactured more ET cartridges than they had sold 2600 machines on the belief that the game would move more machines. Thus, this software was destined to sit in a warehouse for a LONG time. The write-off would free up warehouse space, which would save Atari money by being able to either lease out the warehouse, end a lease with a warehouse, or sell a piece of real estate, depending on the situation.

 

 

there's really no proof other then some news stories with inconclusive pics slapped on the article

 

Notwithstanding the possibility that Tramiel's Atari liquidated the games in 1984, if Atari, indeed, manufactured more ET games than machines, and didn't bury them, then why (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this one) did Tramiel re-release the game in a second manufacturing run in 1986?

 

 

 

So - I don't have any indisputable proof to add, but some more compelling thoughts...

 

 

As a footnote, judging from reading this thread, I would venture a guess that if put on trial, the ET carts were buried theory would hold up in a civil court (balance of probabilities) but still not yet hold up in a criminal trial (beyond a reasonable doubt).

 

 

Probably the most compelling thread on this topic! Kudos to all!

 

Cheers!

 

Joey

[moycon]

Because in the world of big business...write-offs aren't such a big deal

 

This apparently was.

 

How many security guards were hired when you guys dumped equipment?

 

How many reporters came to see Nukey toss a few 100 dumb terminals?

 

How many many camera's were around?

 

I can tell you...None.

 

No sir you'll have to do better than compare this to where you worked. This was news. You just tossed some trashy equipment.

 

Then consider they can get a dollar-for-dollar production cost write-off by reducing dead inventory. This isn't rocket science.

 

I'm not considering that. No-ones come forward and stated how much was supposedly written off the books for this or has come forward and said how much it would cost to bury a million carts. Seems to me they'd have been better off selling the lots over sea's if it came to that. Personally I doubt it ever did.

 

They'd still have the auditors to contend with...and Atari had plenty of unhappy investors that would have loved it if they were playing around with the books

 

Hmmmm Agree'd. Someone said that a law was passed to stop people from doing this? (Dunno if it true) If it is, yeah your right it would have made investors all the more unhappy if Atari pulled a fast one. Maybe the law was passed to prevent stuff like this from happening?

 

It is well known that Atari manufactured more ET cartridges than they had sold 2600 machines on the belief that the game would move more machines.

 

Well known to who? LOL

There's alot of information getting tossed around here that just seems thrown out there to support a theory.

I say, based on info I've read, there wasn't.

Please check out the following links:

 

www.geocities.com/kivernet/Atari_WebSite/html_folder/history.html

 

This site says they sold 1 million and produced 5 million

 

http://www.atarihq.com/othersec/library/30secret.html

 

This site (#10) say they sold 3 million, doesnt give a production #

 

http://www.snopes.com/business/market/atari.asp

 

This site states 5 million were produced and all were returned LOL Sure they were. That's why we all have 20 copies.

 

Ok So we'll say 5 million? Ok No make it 6 million. Now how many 2600 were sold? I've heard 25 - 30 Million. So maybe at that time 20 million?? Plus the 5200 was coming with a 2600 adapter. I dunno that's a good theory but I dont think they over produced E.T. Maybe Atari just wanted people to think they were all returned. I cant name one person that did, and all my friends had Atari. E.T. was far from a bad game. Maybe they went into production later cuz they sold em all? I dunno. I think Pac-Mans production run was like 10-12 million. Twice that of ET . ET is a much better game. (Thats just an opinion)

 

Yes we've all heard lots of #'s, lots of stories, there's lots of speculation. My theory is, didn't happen, wont ever be conclusive evidence that it did, cuz it didn't. Prove me wrong by posting more than tales.

 

This isn't rocket science.

 

It kinda is, we ARE talking about an Extra Terrestrial!!

 

Probably the most compelling thread on this topic! Kudos to all!

 

AGREED!!!

[Stingray]

 

No-ones come forward and stated how much was supposedly written off the books for this or has come forward and said how much it would cost to bury a million carts.

 

Well I'll take a stab at estimating it, although I fully admit that I'm doing quite a bit of guesswork.

 

BFI officials had said their rationale was that

Atari was paying them from $300-$500 a truck to

dispose of the trash.

 

Now after going back through the articles posted thus far, the largest number of truckloads I can find is 14. Taking that number and multiplying by $500 (the large end of the per-truckload estimate) you get $7000.

 

Okay, that's what it cost to bury the carts. There's also a few days worth of labor invoved both in El Paso (loading the trucks) and at the Alamagordo end (unloading the trucks. I can't imagine that the labor cost more than the cost to have the carts buried so lets say another $7000 in labor.

 

Next comes the cost to bury it in cement. Frankly this is the only part of the story that I have a hard time believing due to how much concrete work actually costs. I checked around and, at current prices, concrete is $65 - $70 a cubic yard as near as I can tell. I also learned that the average house has 60 cubic yards of concrete. So lets just randomly say that the equivilant of 10 houses worth of concrete was used. $70 times 60 cubic yards is $4200. $4200 times 10 is $42,000, yow! That's a lot of money to bury the garbage. I know my numbers are off because I'm going by current pricing. I'm not about to try and find out what concrete costs were like in 1983, but if anyone knows I'll be happy to change my estimate.

 

So we're up to $56,000 for disposal costs. Let's throw in another $10,000 to cover variables that I'm not accounting for. That gives us $66,000 to fund E.T.'s funeral.

 

Okay so what did Atari write off? Good question. I know the legend says it was a million cartridges. Lets see if we can come up with a better number. Looking online to try and find how big a semi truck trailer is yeilds varying results. Apparantly there are quite a few different sizes. Who knew? In any case I came up with anywhere from 2200 cubic feet to 3000 cubic feet. I'm going with 2500 because it's an easy number to work with.

 

I don't have a cart box handy to measure so I'll just say you can get about ten of them in a cubic foot. Maybe more, maybe less, but we'll say ten. So 10 times 2500 is 25,000 carts per truck. 25,000 times 14 trucks is 350,000.

 

So that begs the question of how much did Atari write off per cart? Nukey Shay says dollar-for-dollar. Does that mean full retail? I recall new Atari carts being in the $20-$25 range, we'll say they were $20. $20 times 350,000 carts is a cool seven million bucks. Hey even if they only wrote off half retail we're talking $3.5 million. Even going by what a boxed E.T. is worth today (what, about a dollar?) we're still looking at a $350,000 write off for a $66,000 expense.

 

Okay, feel free to shred my argument, I know I'm doing a lot of guessing.

 

-S

[moycon]

No he was going by production costs of the product I think.

Wouldn't matter anyways it doesn't sound like.

They could say, Hey we're dumping 7 million $ worth of stuff.

The question is how much would they be allowed to write off?

Would be interesting to know how much they were allowed to write off for sure. Would have also been interesting seeing different people estimate how much it would have cost to bury em. Man O Man what an interesting thread!

 

Also let me go on the record as stating, I have no clue what Nukeys company threw away. I made it sound like he threw away 100 mainframe terminals, but that was made up. Knowing Nukey it was probably the E.T. carts we're discussing but he cant mention it or the "bad men" will come.

[Stingray]

The question is how much would they be allowed to write off?

Would be interesting to know how much they were allowed to write off for sure.

 

I agree. I wish I knew how to go about finding information like that, but it's way out of my league. Took me long enough to find concrete pricing.

 

-S

[maibock]

If they were a publicly traded company back then and I'm sure they were, you should be able to find financial statements for shareholders for that time period. As far as finding a line item specifically saying - 6 million Atari cartrides = $3,000,000 debit, I doubt it would be spelled out so precisely. Maybe a lost production expense or something like that..

[Stingray]

Uh huh... only I know about as much about investments & financial statements as my cat knows about astronomy. If you can give me a clue as to how to go about digging that kind of info up, I'll give it a go.

 

-S

[maibock]

I tried a quick search over the internet and I was only able to get 1999 financial statements for Atari. Seems like most of the libraries don't have their info on the web, you have to go visit them. I'll see if my broker has a clue where to go..

[Stingray]

I found a site that claims to have extensive financial report archives, but one report costs $60. Still looking for a freebie. Even if I do manage to did this up I have a sinking feeling that it's going to be gibberish to me.

 

-S

[maibock]

I've left a message at Atari's financial relations department requesting info, we'll see what they come up with

[Stingray]

Not an actual Atari financial report, but I did find this info:

 

http://www.icwhen.com/book/the_1980s/1983.shtml

 

FISCAL FINANCIALS  (1983)

 

Atari, Inc. loses $536 million this year (over $2.06 million every business day) on sales of $1.1 billion. Several thousand employees are laid off. Most of the manufacturing is relocated to Mexico.

 

SEPTEMBER  (1983)

On Tuesday, September 6, Mr. James J. Morgan assumes roll as Chairman and CEO of Atari, Inc.. Mr. Morgan was formerly an Executive Vice President of Marketing with Philip Morris USA. One of his immediate decisions is to halt product development completely which kept any new line of products making any Christmas retail deadlines.

 

The decision to halt product development in September lines up pretty nicely with the date of the alleged Alamogordo dumping incident.

 

-S

[Stingray]

A few hours of near aimless wandering around the wacky wide web (what do you mean I should be working at work?) has produced these tidbits:

 

Found a 1984 interview with James Morgan. He says in the interview "The excesses of the past are getting purged out of the organization.", but you'd really have to be reading between the lines to see that as a reference to the Alamogordo landfill. It's still an interesting read, particularly given the benefit of hindsight.

 

Also chanced across a resume for a man who worked at Atari in 1982-1983. Sent him an email asking if he can confirm or deny the landfill story, we'll see if he responds.

 

I've stumbled across a few vague references to this not being the first time Atari destroyed carts to reduce inventory, but nobody sites sources. Anyone know anything about Atari destroying carts previous to the 1983 entombment? Found this article regarding some of Atari's wasteful behavior.

 

I'm amazed at how widely the number of carts that were supposed to have been buried fluctuates. I've seen the number sited to be as small as 5000, and as high as 7 million. Nowhere have I seen the number of trucks reported to be higher than 14. I suppose that my calculation of the number of carts being 350,000 might be off by quite a bit, but I just can't see them being able to cram even as many as one million into fourteen truckloads.

 

I'm ready to drive to New Mexico with a shovel just to put this thing to rest.

 

-S

[maibock]

I'm still waiting for a call back from a Patricia at Atari's financial relations department

 

The elariest financial report I've found from Atari is from 1991.

[Stingray]

Also chanced across a resume for a man who worked at Atari in 1982-1983. Sent him an email asking if he can confirm or deny the landfill story, we'll see if he responds.

 

I heard back from this guy. I replied asking permission to quote his response, so I don't want to do that until he does get back to me. The essence of it was that he was not there (he was involved in producing manuals so there's no reason why he would have been), but that he did hear the story and believed it to be true.

 

There's also a fairly amusing twist involved here so I do hope that he gives me permission to quote him.

 

-S