This figure requires careful interpretation, because what it describes is not exactly what the headline implies.
The 99.9994 percent figure is not the probability that Hauser was not the Baden prince. That probability cannot be meaningfully expressed as a single number, because it depends on how likely you considered the prince theory to be before the DNA evidence was collected — a prior probability that varies enormously depending on who is making the assessment.
What the statistic actually describes is two related findings that together support the authenticity of the analysis. The figure expresses the confidence that the samples examined genuinely belonged to Kaspar Hauser, based on the consistency of results across multiple locks of hair with different provenance histories analyzed by multiple laboratories. And it reflects the statistical confidence that the pattern of results represents authentic ancient DNA rather than contamination.
The underlying genetic finding — that Hauser’s mitotype W is different from the Baden mitotype H1bs — is not probabilistic. Two different haplogroups are simply different. The question of whether the sample is authentic, and whether the laboratory procedures were reliable, is where probability enters the analysis. The 99.9994 percent figure addresses those methodological questions, not the historical question directly.
In plain language: the researchers are highly confident that what they analyzed was genuinely Kaspar Hauser’s DNA, and what they found, with high confidence, was that his maternal lineage does not connect to the Baden royal family.
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## The Sample Authentication Problem: Confronting the Skeptics
One of the most persistent objections to any DNA analysis of the Kaspar Hauser materials has been the question of whether the samples are really his.