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Bear and man turn around corner and spook each other
We don't know which of the two reactions was more brilliant!
Emma Shallcross
02.25.21

The beautiful surrounding Smokey Mountains draw in thousands of visitors to Gatlinburg, Tennessee each year – but beautiful scenery aside, you also may find yourself coming across another sight- in the form of a wild animal or two.

With nature comes wildlife.

A video surfaced of a man having a chance encounter with a bear. In the clip, the man can be seen blindly turning the corner of a building, just as a bear approaches from the other direction.

The hilarious moment sees the man and the bear both get the fright of their lives – and thankfully, both seem as spooked as the other. It could have been a very different ending!

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

As the video doesn’t have much context to it, we’re not sure if the person filming had spotted the man and the bear unknowingly approach each other and decided to sit back and let the situation play out (risky move, if so!) or whether the camera was attached to a building and just so happened to be pointing that way.

The one thing we do know is that this chance meeting between a bear and an unsuspecting resident seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

Everyone who shares their homeland with bears knows the rules: whatever you do, don’t creep up on them, and don’t run away from them either! But it’s totally understandable for those rules to go out of the window in a situation like this.

The reactions.

The man believes that he’s going for a nice stroll around his neighborhood – and so does the bear. So imagine their surprise when they turn the corner and almost walk straight into each other!

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

The man jumps and runs away. Luckily, the bear follows suit, in the other direction.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

The man completely vanishes after that, and we’d bet that he spent the next ten minutes running, at least. The bear, on the other hand, maintains some composure.

As he reaches the end of the house, he turns around as if he’s thinking, “Hold up… did I really just run away from a human?”

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

“I like how the bear runs away then realizes wait a minute…..I’m a bear,’ then turns around,” one commenter joked.

The bear definitely remembered that he was the stronger candidate after he’d run away.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

Human: 0 Bear: 1

To draw a line under an embarrassing moment, the bear decides to head back to the corner of the house again. If the human is still there, then this time, he’s prepared to show him who’s boss.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

No such luck. The human is probably catching a flight to Australia at this point.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

Unsurprisingly, the video did incredibly well when it was posted on YouTube in 2017 by NineCaribou Productions. 14.4 million people from all around the world watched the hilarious 20-second clip, and many took to the comments to share their take on what was going through the bear’s mind.

“The bear’s like ‘wait..did he just…did he just run away too? Wtf am I doing?'” One person commented.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

Another likened the situation to a cartoon:

“When the bear went back a second time, I half expected the man to return as well and they would scare each other again like in a cartoon”

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

All in all, it’s probably a good thing that the man got out of there while he could. Rumor has it that in the year of 2021, he has still not been able to visit that spot since.

YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions
Source:
YouTube Screenshot - NineCaribou Productions

Scroll down to watch the hilarious video for yourself below.

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