Essex Member of Parliament Jeff Watson held a press conference on campus Friday to present results of research by UWindsor engineering professor Colin Novak into the source of what is widely known as the Windsor Hum.

Dr. Novak and Western physics professor Peter Brown received $60,000 in joint federal funding in January 2013 to get to the bottom of a vibration-like noise that has been disturbing west Windsor residents for the past few years.

Novak’s Noise Vibration and Harshnesss-Sound Quality Group (NVH-SQ) set up low-frequency noise monitoring stations in the city’s west end to record noise within the hum’s frequency range. The devices remained in place for several months and alerted Novak by e-mail whenever the suspected hum was active.

The report concluded that the hum does exist and says it “has both qualitative and quantitative characteristics that surmise the likely source of the hum to be from the blast furnace operation on Zug Island.”

Read a summary of the Windsor Hum study results.

Watson says he has sent letters to U.S. government officials and others to pursue opportunities for further study of the hum.