Source of mystery humming sound in Omagh ‘difficult to pinpoint’, council says

A mystery humming sound which has been keeping people in Omagh, Co Tyrone awake at night is proving “difficult to pinpoint” and could take some time to resolve.

Alliance councillor Stephen Donnelly, who has been liaising with Fermanagh and Omagh District Council about the noise, said the local authority was “actively seeking out…specialist equipment [and] external expertise” to help identify the source.

He said people living in a number of different parts of the town have since late October reported “a sustained, persistent buzz or hum” at night which is often accompanied by vibration.

Though Mr Donnelly has not heard it himself – “thankfully I don’t live in an area affected by it” – he has been approached by “a number of people in different parts of the town, which demonstrates it is a problem across the whole geography of the town itself”.

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He said it meant a “significant number of people” could not get a comfortable night’s sleep.

“That’s the big issue in terms of people’s quality of life, it does seem to be something consistently that happens at night and therefore is keeping people awake.”

The cause of the humming sound remains a mystery, though Mr Donnelly says one consideration is whether it comes from “one source or multiple sources…one of the things that the town has speculated [on]…is the noise of generators at night”.

He added, “But at this stage, whilst the investigation has demonstrated that there is a legitimate problem, the technology hasn’t been sufficient to be able to pinpoint where that problem is coming from.”

In a statement, the council confirmed its environmental health officers “are investigating reports of a humming noise in Omagh town but due to the wide area where the sound has been reported it is difficult to pinpoint the exact source(s)”.

“Officers are currently investigating the use of specialist equipment, or procurement of a specialist company, to assist in detecting the source of the noise,” a spokeswoman said.

Mr Donnelly emphasised he was reluctant to get “too heavily involved in speculation” but said he had heard all the stories and was amazed to find the tale of Omagh’s night-time torment had been heard as far away as Australia.

“When I took this up, I regarded it just as another local issue of concern to people in the town, but whenever something like this can be draped in mystery and intrigue, people can read a great deal into it, including some of the more supernatural silly stories,” he said.

“Aliens, flying saucers, I’ve heard a lot of ridiculous things, but I keep saying to people, in my experience…these things are most likely to have quite a boring explanation.”