31. Atari’s E.T. Video Games Found in New Mexico Landfill
Location: Alamogordo, New Mexico
Year Found: 2014.
Est. Value: $5-$10 million*
This is a story that will shock you with its twists and turns. Atari, the maker of video games, realized in 1983 that their much-maligned E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was a massive flop. Atari decided that it needed to get rid of its excess inventory and secretly buried a large portion in a landfill near Alamogordo.
The “Atari Dump”, as it was called, became the stuff urban legends. No one believed the E.T. The game was a huge failure. It wasn’t until 2014 that an exploratory dig at Alamogordo confirmed the Atari Dump was real. Atari’s game had been so despised that it was better to bury millions of copies than try to sell them.
32. Israel Discovers New Dead Sea Scrolls 75 Years Later
Location: Murabba’at Caves in Nahal Darga Reserve. Israel
2021 Year Discovered
Est. Value: Priceless
Israel is a common site for religiously-significant, historical finds, but it’s safe to say that no one expected this. The Israeli Antiquities Authority announced that they found new fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls during an intensive, exhaustive survey of the Judean Desert. This was the first discovery of this kind in over six decades.
The new Scrolls contained pieces of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, which included Nahum and Zechariah. The new discovery is believed to be a part of the minor prophets,a parchment found in the 1950s which contains information about End of Days. The Scrolls survived for thousands of year thanks to the arid, hot conditions where the fragments were discovered.
