Aztec - Legends sometimes are born from facts; other times they come from hope or fear.

Either way, legends prevail when people listen with open minds.

An open mind is all organizers of the 11th Aztec UFO Symposium asked Saturday from the dozens of participants who flooded into the Masonic Lodge.

The symposium, near the alleged UFO crash in Hart Canyon north of Aztec, attracts believers and skeptics from across the country, each looking for evidence of alien life.

The legend states that an unidentified craft crashed in the desert outside Aztec in 1948, killing as many as 16 occupants. But very little evidence remains. The flying disc reportedly fell from the sky after being hit by a beam of light from a nearby radar station.

"All we have at the crash site is circumstantial evidence," said Randy Barnes, one of three independent researchers to discover the site.

The hard evidence includes a block of concrete near the site, which researchers believe was part of the military's operation to remove the spacecraft, a collection of military paraphernalia left behind and a paper trail that leads researchers into the dark recesses of the FBI, CIA and military intelligence.

It is that paper trail that most interests researcher Scott Ramsey. Ramsey has a stack of more than 7,500 documents obtained from the government, but most of the information was blacked out before the documents were released.

"According to the FBI, the government had no interest in the crash," Ramsey said. "If that's true, why did they spend more than five years investigating it? And why were the FBI, CIA and the Air Force all looking at it and trying to keep it hidden?"

Ramsey has spent the last 18 years filtering the facts from the rumors, traveling to 29 states and interviewing 60 first- and second-hand witnesses to the crash.

"I've seen enough evidence and talked to enough people to believe something happened here," he said. "It's an important part of New Mexico history, and we have a lot more work to do."

Organizers of the event do not ask people to believe in alien life or that a UFO crashed near Aztec, Ramsey said. They simply ask people to allow for the possibility.

"It's easy to be a skeptic," he said, "but when you look at this scientifically, there's a lot more to it. There's not a whole lot of evidence supporting the skeptics."

Evidence can be as subtle as a feeling, said Debbie Gitar, a visitor from Minneapolis, Minn. Gitar said she was skeptical about the identified crash site, but not about the crash itself. While standing on the indentation on the desert landscape where researchers claim the craft went down, Gitar said she felt cosmic energy.

"It's all about being open," she said. "Anyone can feel it, because everything that happens leaves energy."

Saturday's encounter was not Gitar's first claim to such with alien life. She said she first was abducted more than 20 years ago while lying in bed. The incidents have occurred several times since.

"They don't take me to put implants in me or to have babies with me," she said. "They come and get me when they need to tell me something; it's instructional. The guys' out there are trying to help us."

Other visitors to the symposium were more skeptical. Jean Frendreis, of Bayfield, Colo., said she attends every year because she likes the idea of UFOs.

Frendreis said she hasn't decided whether she believes in alien life, but she's keeping an open mind.

"I don't feel any different," she said while standing at the crash site. "I don't feel any waves or anything, but it's a fun thing to consider, a unique way of thinking about things, so I'm open to it."