A family visiting Gatlinburg, Tennessee was left shocked after they caught a bear and her three cubs rummaging around their car.

Krista Colson, from Kentucky, and her family noticed a group of bears roaming around their cabin and they wanted to take a closer look.

As the family approached they noticed the bears were inside the vehicle searching for food.

Krista, who filmed this video, told Newsflare: "My mom had gone out to her car to grab something and came back into the cabin we were staying in.

"A couple of minutes later we see a bear out the window on the back porch of the cabin. We all went to check it out and noticed the bear was making her way to the front of the cabin.

"I then went to open the front door to find a momma bear and 3 cubs inside my mom’s car. I was in complete shock! They were after a bag of peppermint icebreaker chewing gum.

"My mom was frantic! She thought the bears would destroy her fairly new car and she started yelling to try and scare the bears away.

"Luckily no one got hurt and the car didn’t have any real damage... just a couple of scratches and some muddy paw prints.

"After the incident, we all laughed about it. It was a scary but pretty cool situation. I had never seen bears up close and personal."