When most people return home, they might expect to find their beloved pet waiting for them in the doorway or a family member busy in the kitchen making dinner. What they don’t expect is to find all of their neighbors hysterically screaming, pointing in their doorway, and barely making any sense.

Yet that is what one man–identified by the news only as Motilal–found when he returned to his home in a village in northeastern India after a particularly terrible series of monsoons had caused flooding in nearby areas. When he was finally able to get inside his home, what he found–and what his neighbor’s had been screaming about–shocked him.

Not A Housecat!

There was a royal Bengal tiger napping on top of his bed. Yes–a real tiger… on his bed… taking a snooze. Photos of the incident show the tiger resting with her head on her arm, looking very peaceful and tired. The tiger is believed to have fled from the close-by Kaziranga National Park, a park where many wild tigers (among other animals native to the region) live during regular non-rainy seasons. However, recent monsoons had caused flooding in about 70% of the land area in the park, leaving many animals fleeing for higher ground and dryer ground. In this case, a bed!

Calling for Help

Shortly after, the local wildlife authorities were called. They sent in the Wildlife Trust of India organization, which often deals with clashes between people and protected wild animals such as tigers. The team brought special equipment with him to help them get the tiger out of the village–and the man’s bed–and back to a safe place.

Nap until Night Time

First, they injected the tiger with tranquilizers that would help keep her calm until it was nightfall. Surprisingly, the man allowed them to keep the tiger on his bed until it was time for the wildlife team to remove her.

Then the wildlife team took her away from the village and woke her up in a rather strange way: with firecrackers. The loud sound woke her up enough to make her clear a nearby closed highway, and from there the tiger was able to make it towards dry ground in the forest.

The man who led the operation noted that the tiger was “very exhausted and had a nice day-long nap… the great thing was that nobody disturbed her so she could rest. There’s a lot of respect for wildlife in this region.”

True to form, no one in the village seemed to have ill-will towards the tiger—perhaps because they, like local wildlife, also have to find ways to deal with the exceptionally rainy monsoons that are causing flooding in the area.

The man whose bed was briefly the napping spot for a tiger noted that he will preserve the pillow and sheets the tiger rested on in order to keep the memory of the eventful day in his mind.