Halloween is right around the corner, and many people are getting their best ghost stories ready for the campfire.

While some of us view these tales as mere coincidences, others have had personal experiences with the paranormal.

Get ready for Halloween early by taking a look at these ghostly accounts as told by two students from the University of North Georgia.

The Ghost of Lewis Hall

McKenzie Smith, 19, lives in Lewis Hall on the Dahlonega campus.

Before moving in, she was a little nervous, as she knew she’d been assigned to the “haunted dorms.”

“Rumor has it that a girl named Lisa who went there a long time ago killed herself on the fourth floor,” she said, “because her boyfriend was a cadet, and he got shipped off to war in another country.”

Smith lives on the third floor, as did her mother, Rebecca Norris, who had an encounter with the Lewis ghost in 1996.

It was a weekend before a break, said Smith, so the school was practically empty.

Regardless, Norris had stayed behind, as did her friend Mary, who lived on the fourth floor.

“In the middle of the night, she heard someone knocking at her door,” said Smith. “She opened it, and it was Mary.”

Mary asked Norris if she could stay in her dorm that night, as she was too scared to sleep alone.

“She told my mom that she was sleeping in her bed, and she kept hearing someone say, ‘Mary, Mary.’” – McKenzie Smith

However, when she turned around, no one was there.

In addition to her mother’s story, Smith has had bizarre experiences of her own in Lewis Hall.

The marketing major described how one night, she and her roommate filled up their water bottles before bed.

“I woke up that morning, and I went to take a sip of my water,” she said. “Weirdly, my water bottle was completely empty.”

Afterwards, her roommate went to take a sip of her water bottle, and you guessed it: empty.

“I freaked out,” said Smith. “I think that was the second night we moved in, so that was a little odd.”

Smith’s most recent encounter with the paranormal happened to her boyfriend, a resident assistant in the building.

Her boyfriend was at the school for RA training a few weeks before the start of the semester, and he was the only RA on his hall. However, when he went to the bathroom, he discovered he wasn’t alone.

“The water was on, and it’s a communal bathroom, so he thought another RA was showering,” said Smith. “He went back in the bathroom, and the water was still on, but no one was there.”

Despite its ghostly resident, Smith enjoys living in Lewis Hall, and she’s not looking to move out anytime soon.

“I was a little nervous about Lewis at first, but now, nothing’s happened,” she said. “Also, I like stuff like that. I think it’s interesting.”

The Haunting of the Bellamy Apartment Complex

Last year, 20-year-old Sarah Cochran moved into the Bellamy Apartment Complex in Dahlonega.

“From day one, I never felt comfortable there,” she said.

One night, Cochran’s sense of unease proved to be within reason.

Cochran and her ex-boyfriend were in the apartment making dinner. She was at the bar, and he was at the stovetop cooking. Beside the stove stood a single bottle of olive oil with the cap resting on top.

“It was like somebody went up to it and flicked it, and the cap went flying across the room,” said Cochran.

However, the activity didn’t stop there.

“Not even five minutes go by, and the Alexa down the hall in my roommate’s bathroom turns on and starts talking,” she said.

Then, the next day, Cochran’s guitar fell over when no one else was in the room.

Despite such occurrences, the biology major doesn’t believe the apartment complex itself is haunted.

“I don’t believe it was based on the Bellamy,” said Cochran. “I think it was something more personal.”

Cochran’s former boyfriend claimed to have spirits attached to him, and she believes she saw one at his personal residence.

“We were lying in bed, and we could see light coming in through the crack of the door and the wall next to us,” she said. “It didn’t look like something physical. It was just this black, gelatinous kind of thing that would come out of the wall and go back in.”

On that occasion, Cochran was very unsettled, and she felt unsafe.

However, not all of her paranormal experiences have left her with that feeling.

One afternoon when Cochran and her ex-boyfriend were no longer together, the 20-year-old opened the door of her apartment and said, “Welcome home, home.”

To her surprise, she received an answer.

“I heard out of my right ear, ‘Welcome back.’ Nobody else was in the apartment.”

Shockingly, Cochran wasn’t too unsettled in this instance.

“I could tell the tone of voice, and it was very friendly,” she said. “It felt like a genuine welcome back.”

Cochran had this to say to those interested in the paranormal:

“I believe that spirits and the supernatural are around us constantly, whether we’re aware of it or not,” she said. “So above all else, be respectful to them and to what’s around you that you might not be able to see, because seeing isn’t necessarily believing.”