Retired Arizona Cops Aid First Responders Facing the Unexplained

In 2022, Dave Rich and Marianne Robb co-founded the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Police Department to help first responders cope with strange encounters.

Marianne Robb (L) and Dave Rich, both former Arizona police officers, founded the Unidentified Anamolous Phenomenon Police Department in 2022 as a way to help first responders deal with inexplicable things that happened on the job. Photo taken on March 18, 2026. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

PHOENIX—For six years, Detective Dave Rich locked the incident away, a burden he couldn’t share, explain, or discard.

He was a hardened skeptic by nature and, above all, a seasoned and disciplined investigator.

He also feared losing his job.

Rich recalls that April day in 2017 as the moment his career veered off the familiar path of law enforcement and plunged into the unknown.

Just before noon on prom day in Gilbert, Arizona, a call came into emergency dispatch.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

A woman whispered, “I scare.”

The dispatcher hesitated, unsure she’d heard correctly. She asked the woman to repeat herself.

“I scare.”

“You’re scared?”

Marianne Robb and Dave Rich, both retired Arizona detectives who co-founded the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Police Department, on March 18, 2026. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

“No.”

Then she heard a burst of static and the sound of the phone hitting the floor.

By the time officers arrived at the high school, the phone receiver hung loose at the front desk, swaying on its cord.

Rich said there was no sign on any of the security cameras that anyone had made the call. No prankster. No unidentified woman.

Rich, who had been assigned to investigate the incident as a 911 infraction, sent the video footage to a forensic expert. It wasn’t just distorted. It wasn’t masked or artificially generated.

The voice on the recording wasn’t human.

“We ran down every possible lead or idea that we could come up with. I was stuck. I couldn’t find an answer,” Rich told The Epoch Times.

The real challenge came when his supervisor summoned him into the office and laid down the law. The ranking officer accused Rich of lying—of fabricating the entire incident.

Career Ender

That confrontation left him both angry and deflated, a heavy burden as he approached retirement. He carried it for six years—until a call from fellow Gilbert detective Marianne Robb changed everything.

She was with a friend who investigated UFOs, and through their conversation, Rich discovered he wasn’t alone.

Ron James, documentary filmmaker and public relations director for the Mutual UFO Network, in Sedona, Ariz., on Dec. 17, 2022. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

Many first responders had faced the same inexplicable events, the same trauma.

And all had a common thread: the fear of speaking out, the threat of ridicule, and sometimes even reprisals, or loss of job or pension.

“So for six years, I didn’t talk about it,” Rich said. “And every year or so, it would come up.

“Somebody would say, ‘Hey, remember that ghost story at the school?‘ And I’d be sitting there going: ‘Shut your mouth. I don’t need this grief.’ Because if nobody’s talking about it, I don’t have to worry.”

In late 2022, Rich and Robb, both retired, created the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Police Department (UAP-PD), offering a haven for first responders who had faced the unexplainable.

Since then, more than 100 first responders have reached out to share their stories from around the world. Their work focuses less on investigation and more on consoling, reassuring, and validating the distress of those affected.

“That’s all we deal with—first responders. All law enforcement—state, federal, local, firefighters, nurses, EMTs, paramedics,” Robb said. “If somebody wants to share a story, we’ll listen.”

Case Studies

Among the more widely cited cases on the UAP-PD web page is a 1975 incident in Lumberton, North Carolina. In this case, several law enforcement officers reported unusual sightings of strange, boomerang-shaped aircraft, including one close encounter.

David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Office representative on the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force, in Washington on July 26, 2023. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

In 1979, Deputy Val Johnson of Marshall County, Minnesota, reported that an unidentified force collided with his car, cracking the windshield and rendering him unconscious.

According to the National Institutes of Health, police officers, firefighters, and other first responders are among the first on the scene in critical situations—and also among the first to experience their emotional impact.

These experiences can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition Rich and Robb have seen firsthand in many of the first responders who reached out to them for support.

Both former detectives stress the delicate line law enforcement officers and first responders walk when confronting the unexplained.

It’s not just about personal credibility—it’s also about the reputation of the agencies they serve.

“We are all Type A personalities,” Robb told The Epoch Times. “We go into a situation. We’re going to do our job.”

Fear of Ridicule

But the unexplained—or paranormal—is an entirely different story, she said.

“You’re not going to say anything because you don’t want to be ridiculed by fellow officers or supervisors,” Robb said.

Although such experiences are more common than most realize, Rich and Robb say the code of silence among these professionals is real, and their experiences are impossible to quantify.

“We don’t focus on ghosts or Bigfoot or UFOs,” Rich said. “Our focus is on the first responders. And that gives us two things.

“First of all, our caliber of witness is amazing because these are first responders. They are trained. They are certified. They are, basically, trained to be unflappable in stressful situations. But it also allows us to dip into these different genres.”

Rich and Robb both emphasized that first responders are among the most credible witnesses. In their own careers, honesty and integrity were always paramount.

Robb, 59, spent 34 years in Arizona law enforcement, serving as a police officer and detective investigating arson, property crimes, and narcotics and working in crime prevention.

In 2015, she joined the Arizona chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, a national organization that investigates unidentified aerial phenomena using scientific evidence-gathering techniques.

Rich, 52, retired after 25 years in Arizona law enforcement. Also active in the Mutual UFO Network, he served as a police officer and detective handling gang activity, homicide, sex crimes, and narcotics. He spent 15 years as a high school resource officer.

Call From the Dead?

On prom day in 2017 at a Gilbert high school, officers responding to the 911 call reported something pushing between them as they entered the school nurse’s office.

Rich interviewed the nurse three times. By the third, she could no longer hold back.

Visibly upset, she slammed her hand on the desk. “Fine, I’ll tell you,” she said. Then she revealed something even Rich found hard to believe: her entire life had been haunted.

Footsteps. Doors opening and closing on their own. Strange occurrences followed her wherever she moved.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Rich asked.

She said: “Three weeks ago, everything at the house stopped. It was peaceful. And then last night ... it started again.”

The 911 incident remains unexplained to this day, Rich said.

“We realize that there’s stuff in this world we don’t understand. There’s stuff that’s bigger than us,” Rich said.

“Maybe we just need to use a little bit of grace when we’re talking about people who experienced it.”