Starting on September 29 , 1983 , a layer of concrete was poured on top of the crushed materials , a rare occurrence in waste disposal . An anonymous workman 's stated reason for the concrete was : " There are dead animals down there . We would n't want any children to get hurt digging in the dump . " Eventually , the city began to protest the large amount of dumping Atari was doing , with one commissioner stating that the area did not want to become " an industrial waste dump for El Paso . " The local manager ordered the dumping to be ended shortly afterwards . Due to Atari 's unpopular dumping , Alamogordo later passed an Emergency Management Act and created the Emergency Management Task Force to limit the future flexibility of the garbage contractor to secure outside business for the landfill for monetary purposes . Alamogordo 's then-mayor , Henry Pacelli , commented that , " We do not want to see something like this happen again . " All of these factors have led to wide speculation that most of the 3.5 million unsold copies of '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial '' ultimately wound up in this landfill , crushed and encased in concrete . It has also been reported that prototypes for the proposed Atari Mindlink controller system were disposed of at the site , which only further fuels speculation , since Atari Museum owner Curt Vendel actually currently owns the Mindlink prototypes . Writing for the '' Pacific Historical Review '' , John Wills speculated that location 's place in the public psyche — its proximity to the sites of both the Trinity nuclear test and Roswell UFO incident — has aided the popularity of the story
Trinity nuclear test
Trinity (nuclear test)
Atari video game burial