Did Atari bury millions of E.T. copies in a landfill in New Mexico? We'll soon find out if it's fact or fiction

Did Atari actually bury millions of copies of its failed movie tie-in E.T: The Extra Terrestrial in a landfill in New Mexico, or is that just a myth? We won't have to wait much longer to find out, as Alamogordo News reports that the New Mexico Environmental Department has given a documentary crew the go-ahead to start excavating the site in search of the game.

Alamogordo city commissioners approved the search in June, but the project was later put on hold because a waste excavation plan needed to be finalized before the digging could begin. That proposal has now been accepted, and the the two companies producing the documentary, Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Interactive, can get to work.

Xbox Entertainment Studios is commissioning the project, which will debut as a multi-part documentary series exclusively on Xbox platforms later this year.

E.T. was released in December 1982 for the Atari 2600, with millions of copies produced under the assumption that the link to the hit Steven Spielberg movie would guarantee sales success. The failure of the game is believed to be one of the main contributing factors to 1983's crash of the video game industry.