Gray Presence Said to Linger at Catholic Funeral, Then Follow Deceased's Best Friend

THE INTERNET — A Reddit user posting to r/Paranormal has described what the author calls an experience "I genuinely still can't explain," which occurred at a family friend's funeral a few months ago. The author, who describes themselves as a skeptical person, says they have seen auras since childhood and have had premonition-like dreams.

According to the post, the service was held in a large Catholic church. As the deceased man's relative, a neighbor of the author, delivered the eulogy, the author writes that they felt someone standing near him and saw a large, vaguely defined gray orb or shadow. It was not threatening, the author says, yet they were certain it was the departed. They then began to sob silently, to the alarm of their mother, who had never seen them cry so in company.

The author reports that the shape later moved to the far wall of the church, where it seemed to observe the proceedings. At the lunch gathering afterward, it is said to have reappeared, drifting about the room and returning repeatedly to the neighbor and to a heavier-set man with glasses and a limp, seated some tables away. The author did not know him.

Only at home, after asking their mother to hear them out, did the author describe the man. The mother, according to the post, replied that he was the deceased's best friend. The author calls this the detail that has stayed with them most.

The writer is notably even-handed about the matter. The post allows that grief, the atmosphere of a funeral, lighting, or the workings of the author's own brain may account for the vision. The author adds that they have attended no funeral since, and takes comfort in the thought that the dead may linger briefly to check on those they loved.