The world of videogames includes a number of unsolved mysteries, however one particular mystery seemed nothing more than a Chinese whisper. A rumour. A hoax. For years people have talked about how hundreds of copies of the Atari title 'E.T. The Extra Terrestrial' game (which massively flopped at retail) could have been buried in a landfill site. The Angry Video Game Nerd has even featured this tale as the main storyline for his upcoming film.

Turns out, it's true! Microsoft are busy recording a documentary on the subject and managed to negotiate an excavation of the landfill out in New Mexico. Low and behold, they found a fair number of copies of the infamous title, mixed in with a number of other Atari titles of the time including Centipede and Space Invaders.

You can find out more information about the documentary and the discovery of the lost cartridges at this link.

Images courtesy of Major Nelson's Twitter feed.