Back (unexpectedly) to County Tyrone for a new story that’s getting coverage in UK national newspapers as well as the usual local ones. Omagh is the county town of Tyrone, and unfortunately now known to most people as the site of one of the worst losses of life through terrorism during the Northern Ireland “Troubles”. Since then, Omagh people have done what they were always good at – just getting on with things quietly, and letting the rest of the world go on its way.
But recently, Omagh has been back in the headlines – because of an incidence of “The Hum”. The hum has been variously reported around the world in a variety of locations, it’s cause blamed on mining, railway work, engineering, road traffic on new surfaces, and even fish mating rituals. The hum is hard to put your finger on – frequently just at the edge of hearing, and not even perceived by everyone at any one location, but once noticed it’s impossible to ignore. Even describing it as “The Hum” gives it the suggestion of connectedness with other occurrences, but there’s absolutely no evidence to support that at all.
So, Omagh’s hum is described as “a persistent buzz or constant hum” or “a low drone”, by those who have heard it, becoming audible around 10pm – 11pm in the evening when traffic noise dies down, and carrying on through the night. Various theories based on hunches rather than solid evidence have been bandied about, but no-one is any closer to an answer so far. The local council have agreed to investigate, and suggested bringing “experts” in to advise, but the question remains – experts in what? These sounds are incredibly hard to detect and locate, and you could spend a lot of ratepayers’ money finding out absolutely nothing at all.
The operation of a gold mine in the Sperrin Mountains has been suspected and most who have heard it suspect some sort of an industrial source, but judging by the way “The Hum” has behaved in other locations, some day it will just start to fade away and no-one will be any the wiser!