Hungry bear crawls through car window, gently moves kids’ car seats, and finds a snack

A hungry bear crawled through a mom's car window and "gently moved" her children's car seats around to gobble up some "old food," the woman posted on Facebook.

Kasey Ford Johnson said she returned to find the bear looking out from her Honda Odyssey van in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, earlier this month.

"I would have died!!" Becky Bare Thompson posted beneath photos of the bear on Johnson's Facebook page. "What did you do???"

"Just waited," Johnson replied, "then used my remote to open the back, and another stranger just banged on my hood and it ran away."

"Looks like he'd appreciate a car ride beary much," a viewer posted under a story about the bear on WJHL's Facebook page, the CBS-TV affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee. "Bears just want love, too."

The National Park Service recommends that if a bear does the opposite of the Gatlinburg bear and instead approaches you, you should stand your ground.

"If the bear gets closer, talk loudly or shout at it," the National Park Service recommends on its website. "Act aggressively to intimidate the bear. Act together as a group if you have companions. Make yourselves look as large as possible (for example, move to higher ground). Throw non-food objects such as rocks at the bear. Use a deterrent such as a stout stick. Don't run and don't turn away from the bear."

Bear encounters such as the one in Gatlinburg are more common this time of year as bears forage for food post-hibernation.

In early May, two black bears climbed into a car in Asheville for a bag of food, according to The Citizen Times.

On June 7, a woman took video of a bear scampering past frightened tourists in downtown Gatlinburg.

This story was originally published June 27, 2018 at 7:27 PM.