Video Game Cartridge, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

An Atari 2600 (also known as VCS) cartridge with the game "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." This cartridge was excavated from the landfill at Alamagordo, New Mexico on April 26, 2014. Atari buried millions of cartridges in 1983 in order to remove inventory from their warehouse in El Paso, Texas. Due to scant and obscure written records as well as the coincidence of being buried near where Roswell occurred, the burial became in the public consciousness a urban legend, but the excavation revealed many cartridges which was then collected. The commercial flop of E.T. was one of the factors that led to a video game crash that started in 1982-1985.

A paper is attached to the game with a serial number from the City of Alamagordo as a certification that it came from the excavation. The serial number is COA / 08073.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1982
• maker: Atari, Inc.
• Object Name: video game cartridge
• Object Name: cartridge, game
• Object Type: Video Game
• Physical Description: plastic (overall material)
• Measurements: cartridge: 4 3/8 in x 3 1/2 in x 1 in; 11.1125 cm x 8.89 cm x 2.54 cm
• ID Number: 2014.0190.01
• serial number: COA / 08073
• catalog number: 2014.0190.01
• accession number: 2014.0190
• Credit Line: Gift of Fuel Entertainment
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.