By admin 
GILBERT, AZ (AZFamily) — Police and firefighters respond to hundreds of calls every day, from car accidents to shootings to domestic violence. Most are situations they have seen before, but occasionally, they encounter something they cannot explain.
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Dave Rich and Marianne Robb are former Gilbert police officers who founded an organization called UAP-PD — Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Police Department — to give first responders a place to report those experiences.
“We’re not trying to convince people that these things are real,” Rich said. “We don’t know if they are real. All we know is we haven’t found an explanation for them yet.”
‘Safe zone’ for first responders
The organization’s mission is to provide a reporting outlet for first responders who have encountered paranormal or unexplained incidents while on the job.
“We know about the stress that other law enforcement and first responders are going through, so we started this organization to let them know there is a safe zone for them,” Robb said. “You’re not crazy. You did see something — is it explainable? It might be — but you saw something you can’t explain at the time.”
Since UAP-PD launched, Rich and Robb say they have been contacted by hundreds of first responders from across the country and around the world.
From strange lights to unexplained voices
The incidents reported to UAP-PD vary widely. In one, a piece of body camera footage shows officers responding to a disturbance call at a home and hearing what sounds like a scream. When police search the home, they find no one inside.
An ambulance driver near Monument Valley reported seeing strange lights in the sky that were never explained.
Rich said the reports span a range of phenomena.
“You’re talking ghosts, spirits, things like that, but we’re also getting cryptid stories like entities, like little people — they’re on Indian reservations,” he said.
Rich said many of the people who contact UAP-PD are simply looking for a discreet outlet.
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“They just want to get it off their chest and talk to somebody who is not going to go and blab it everywhere,” he said.
Rich said UAP-PD grew in part from a paranormal experience he had while working as a school resource officer. He said a 911 call came in from the front desk of the school with a voice on the line that appeared to say “I’m scared.” When he investigated, Rich said he found no evidence that anyone had picked up the phone.
“There’s a camera looking at the front desk of the school, and that phone call came in on — is almost dead center of footage — so there’s no way anybody could get to that phone without being seen on this camera,” Rich said.
Rich and Robb said they do not investigate or validate the paranormal reports that come in. They document them and let first responders know it is acceptable to talk about their experiences.
“Whose to say these things people are seeing, maybe they are things we just haven’t figured out yet,” Robb said.
“You’ve got to focus on the folks that are seeing these things that need your help,” Rich said.
For more information visit uap-pd.com/
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