Lunan, who grew up in Troon, claims descent from an illegitimate son of King Robert II of Scotland, Alexander Stuart, who owned the "Lands of Lunaine" near Aberdeen, and, more distantly, from the astronomers of ancient Chaldea "who invented the calendar, hence making agriculture and civilisation possible". On his mother's side, he traces his ancestry back to the Mitochondrial Eve. In June 1959 he traveled to South Uist in the Hebrides to witness the test launch of an American MGM-5 Corporal, which the British Army had purchased as the nation's first nuclear missile. The 13-year-old student watched the launch with senior NATO military leaders, but at home he was interrogated by the Scottish Office, MI5, Army Intelligence, and the CIA to attempt to determine how he had entered the secret launch site, which the Soviets had put under surveillance.