Gujarat (India) - There are many things you can expect to find in your kitchen at midnight - but the discovery made by a family from India is certainly not on anyone's wish list.

In the middle of the night, the residents of a village in Gujarat, India, were woken from their sleep by strange noises. At first, the family assumed that a house cat had strayed into their home, couldn't find its way out and was therefore roaring loudly.

Armed with a flashlight, the residents entered the kitchen and then quite possibly had the worst fright of their lives!

Two large eyes flashed at them from the ceiling in the beam of the flashlight. These belonged to none other than a full-grown lion, which, according to the Times of India, must have somehow squeezed through between the kitchen wall and the roof rafters to get inside the house.

Apparently in search of food, the hungry feline predator had scaled the four-meter-high wall of the property, which was supposed to protect the house from such unwanted visitors.

The family then did what anyone else would do if confronted by a lion: they screamed for their lives and ran out of the house.

Awakened by their cries for help, neighbors cautiously entered the kitchen to inspect the wild animal and capture it on video.

But the incident was to have a happy ending for everyone: After its discovery, the wild animal was apparently also overcome with fear and retreated into the nearby wooded area.

The shocked family only returned to their home once the alarmed authorities had searched the house to ensure that there were no more lions inside.

What happened is not an isolated incident in the area. As the lion population in India has increased in recent years, so have sightings and encounters with humans. Just last May, a group of 14 big cats were spotted crossing a road.