'Something magical': DNA results released after investigating Santa's presence in 10-year-old girl's home
CUMBERLAND, NORTH CAROLINA: After the Cumberland Police department sent a DNA sample to confirm whether Santa Claus had visited the home of a 10-year-old, the Rhode Island Department of Health returned the test results.
The young girl in a letter to the police chief earlier this month had asked for assistance in her search for the truth. “I took a sample of a cookie and carrots that I left for Santa and the reindeer on Christmas Eve and was wondering if you could take a sample of DNA and see if Santa is real?” she wrote as per WPRI.
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The young girl sent two zip-lock bags along with her letter, which contained a partially eaten cookie and two half-eaten carrots.
“I feel like since he bit it, he might have left DNA,” she said. Upon receiving the letter, Cumberland Police Chief Matthew Benson forwarded the “evidence” to the Rhode Island Department of Health for analysis.
The Rhode Island Department of Health after analyzing the sample took to Twitter to announce the result. In a shared news release the department said it was not able to “definitively confirm or refute the presence of Santa” in a young girl's home.
"Unfortunately there were no complete matches to anyone." However, they said, "interestingly, there was a partial match to a 1947 case centered around 34th Street in New York City." The department said they would need additional DNA samples from other known Santa encounters to make a more definitive match."
🎅The results are in... pic.twitter.com/0ZakM5ph36
— Rhode Island Department of Health (@RIHEALTH) January 23, 2023
The “good news” is that the lab did find the presence of DNA closely matching Rangifer tarandus, known as reindeer when testing the carrots, the department said. Despite the findings, the health department told the young girl to not give up in her search for the truth. “We all agree that something magical may be at play, so we encourage you to remain curious,” the health department said, adding that they look forward to reviewing her application to work at the state lab “someday in the future.”
Prior to the results, the police chief said, “This young lady obviously has a keen sense for truth and the investigative process and did a tremendous job packaging her evidence for submission,” Benson said. “We will do our very best to provide answers for her.”