We first discuss the "Una Ronald" story as described in Dark Moon. Then we discuss the authors' summer 2003 response to the points we and others have raised.

In western Australia, a woman pseudonymed "Una Ronald" stayed up late to watch live Apollo 11 coverage and saw a Coke bottle kicked across the screen. When the coverage was repeated the next day, the bottle had disappeared. [Mary Bennett and David Percy, Dark Moon, pp. 319ff]

This is obviously a pretty fantastic story, one which the authors claim holds "great importance." We think we know what Una Ronald's "Coke bottle" might have been, but the authors maintain that what "Una" saw cannot be seen in existing videotapes and kinescopes.

The inhabitants of western Australia did not see the same version of the moonwalk as the rest of the world. Since the radio telescope receiving the signal was located in eastern Australia, the Australian television stations just copied the signal directly before it was sent off to America and the rest of the world. Una Ronald actually saw a delayed broadcast of videotape flown to Perth from Sydney. There was no direct hookup across the Australian continent so the western Australians had no way of seeing it live.

This is how Bennett and Percy deftly attempt to patch up the first large hole in Una Ronald's story, namely that she had to "stay up" to watch the moonwalk live. The Apollo 11 EVA occurred in the late morning in western Australian time. So Una couldn't have "stayed up" to watch it live. Bennett and Percy gently ignore Una's mistaken recollection and assert she must have been watching taped coverage replayed later at night.

Unfortunately the authors are wrong about the live hookup. The telecast was received via satellite at Carnarvon, north of Perth, and then beamed to Perth over an ad hoc network specifically constructed to carry the moonwalk live to western Australia. So Una Ronald could have seen the moonwalks live from her home, but not at the time she claimed.

In the end it changes the story very little. If Una had been watching a tape-delayed repeat, it could be consistent with when she said she watched it. We bring up these inconsistencies to show that Aulis authors simply pick and choose the parts of her story they present as credible evidence, and pass over the parts that don't add up. In order for Bennett and Percy's conclusion below to make sense, it must have been a tape-delayed broadcast, so they just change Una Ronald's story to match the conclusion they want to draw. And it's not the only time they change her story.

In contrast to the grainy, indistinct images of the astronauts, the Coke bottle was clear and sharp and unmistakable.

The authors suggest that the Coke bottle might have been added by an anonymous Australian whistle-blower between when the telecast was recorded in Sydney, and when it was rebroadcast from Perth. This is why the authors argue that Una must have seen a videotape. It would have been practically impossible for someone to interject a convincing Coke bottle facsimile into a live transmission undetected. However, some technician with access to the video could have done it off-line.

This is the second attempt to gloss over major differences between Una Ronald's story and what the Aulis authors want to make of it. After seeing the Coke bottle, Una exclaimed, "It's a fake!" How could there be a Coke bottle on the moon? It must have been filmed on earth.

In other words, Una believes the Coke bottle was actually on the "set" with the astronauts, not pasted on in post-production by some mysterious mischievous video engineer. But she can't answer why the bottle was so suspiciously recognizable in contrast to the rest of the picture, yet still part of the scene. The Aulis authors de-emphasize that Una thought the Coke bottle was integral to the scene, and predicate their hypothesis solely on the other part of her observation.

But that's a significant departure, at least from the point of view of the authenticity of the footage. Una's interpretation, if correct, would mean that the moonwalk itself was fraudulent. There were no Coke bottles on the moon. The astronauts couldn't have kicked one across the surface if it hadn't actually been there, as she believes. But in the Aulis interpretation the bottle wasn't really there on the "set". It was added electronically to the picture. That, unfortunately, doesn't prove that the underlying picture was fabricated.

If you take a real picture of the real Eiffel Tower and then use Photoshop to insert a flying saucer, the resulting image -- taken as a whole -- would be considered fraudulent. But that doesn't change the fact that the background plate was actually taken of the Eiffel Tower. That part of it is still real. So when Bennett and Percy depart (again) from Una Ronald's story to argue that the Coke bottle must have been added later, they fall well short of proving by this that the telecast itself was false.

The unknown Australian whistle-blower was sending the message that the Apollo 11 telecast was nothing but a big marketing ploy.

To be fair, Bennett and Percy clearly label this conclusion as speculation, but at this point it's speculation piled on top of speculation. They can't prove that the incident even took place, and yet they devise fanciful explanations for it. Logically this is a subversion of support.

As it stands the hypothesis is circular. Aulis' interpretation stems from an assumed premise that the footage was fake, and that their hypothetical whistle-blower is assumed to know about it. If you relax the assumption that the footage was fake (since this is, after all, what they're trying to prove) then the hypothetical video tamperer can have a variety of motives, including pure mischief.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First we still require proof that the Coke bottle actually appeared at all.

When Una and her friends watched the repeats, the bottle was not there. But a week or so later, letters to the editor appeared in The Western Australian newspaper from other people who had seen it. The Western Australian declined to respond to our inquiries about those letters. [Bennett and Percy, op. cit.]

While Bennett and Percy emphasize the Western Australian's lack of cooperation, they neglect to tell the reader whether they verified the existence of those letters by other means. After all, you don't need the testimony of the editor to establish that a certain letter was or was not published in a widely-circulated newspaper. You just look at the back issues.

Clavius researcher Peter Barrett examined surviving copies of The Western Australian dating to the time in question and failed to find any mention whatsoever of Coke bottles in the moonwalk telecast.

Chief librarian Tracey Bennett (no relation to Mary) for The Western Australian has confirmed that no letter or article regarding a Coke bottle in the moonwalk telecast was printed in either of their two newspapers for at least two weeks following the broadcast. (And it only took Clavius researchers 48 hours and one request to confirm this.)

Are we surprised?

The claim that The Western Australian published those letters comes from -- you guessed it -- Una Ronald herself. She claims there was a protracted discussion in print which was abruptly terminated. But no evidence of such a discussion can be produced.

It wasn't just about a Coke bottle. Una Ronald was suspicious about the lighting, which she felt was "odd". She also was confused by the apparent inconsistencies in shadows.

We think it's suspicious that Una would already be fairly well versed in the standard allegations of moon hoax conspiracists before seeking out Bennett and Percy. And all of these allegations use the Hasselblad photography as their basis; the lighting and shadow arguments are generally not arguable from the Apollo 11 video, as these images are of too poor quality. But Una said she was suspicious of those shadow directions while watching the telecast, before any of the Hasselblad photographs had been released. (And, indeed, before many of them had even been taken.)

Una Ronald allowed us to tell her story only if we kept her anonymous.

Then why does Una Ronald appear, undisguised, on camera in What Happened on the Moon? Bennett and Percy seem fairly unconcerned about keeping their "whistle-blower" from being recognized. They're only concerned, apparently, with making sure no one can investigate or verify her story.

A CLEARER PICTURE OF UNA RONALD

We simply dismiss Aulis' allegation of some mysterious hypothetical Australian whistle-blower. It's circular, tacked-on speculation. And Aulis has to bend and twist Una Ronald's story in order to make it fit their conclusion anyway. Let's see if we can come up with a different interpretation of Una Ronald.

First, did she see the moonwalk live, or on tape? We'll be honest -- we don't know. Either is possible. We presume Una remembers whether she watched it during the day or late at night, so if we trust that part of her story then we concede she saw a taped version. But she claimed to have seen it live? Well, she was mistaken, and this is an understandable mistake.

If we strip away the selective analysis of Bennett and Percy, we're left with a woman who claims to have seen, live, an unmistakable Coke bottle kicked across the "moon" surface. But the next day, on the re-run, it was gone. All this, put together, points to a claim that the "live" broadcast contained that blooper which was hastily edited out of the re-run.

But hundreds of millions of people saw the moonwalks live. If we stay true to Una's belief, those hordes of people would have had to see it to. And we believe they did. Only, for whatever reason, they didn't recognize it as Una did. Nevertheless it does fit Una's observation very closely. It's in the lower right portion of the screen, and it does appear to bounce along as would a bottle kicked across the ground.

Una says she could clearly identify it, but let's be honest. No matter how pristine the video image, who can recognize a Coke bottle as it's being kicked? But Una needs to be able to claim the object was what she said it was. If it was simply a trick of light or a bit of insulation, she has nothing to say about it to the world. It has to be a bottle and she has to be sure about it.

But how to deal with repeats? The object she perhaps caught out of the corner of her eye in the "live" broadcast was there again, but not nearly as unmistakable as it was the night before. So did she "remember" the prior broadcast differently? Was this the point at which she said, "No, I must have seen something different last night?"

Now simmer for thirty years, adding a conspiracy theory book occasionally. She learns about shadow angles, of "botched" illumination, of the various telltales others notice. Then when the Aulis authors advertise for any potential Apollo "whistle-blowers" she sees her moment to shine. After 30 years of reinforcing her belief that she really did see something extraordinary that winter night in western Australia, she's ready to tell her story.

But what about the corroboration? Una can't produce any other witnesses, so she invents the little white lie about The Western Australian. After all, are the Aulis authors really going to do all that legwork to verify that part of the story? (It turns out she was right; they didn't.) And she desperately needs some sort of objective corroboration. Maybe she did, in fact, "remember" that the newspaper published those letters. Unfortunately the facts disagree, and Ms. Ronald's recollections must take a back seat to cold fact, even if it means accusing a sweet lady of telling white lies.

Are we speculating? Absolutely. Are we putting thoughts and motives into Una Ronald's head? Absolutely. Might we be entirely wrong about that whole scenario? Without a doubt.

But that's the point. Una Ronald doesn't give us anything to go on except Una Ronald. There are no facts to corroborate her story, no opportunity to ask clarifying questions, no opportunity for investigation or verification whatsoever. We have an excuse: we don't know who Una Ronald is. We'd love to interview her, but we can't. So we have to speculate and risk taking a beating for it.

Aulis, however, doesn't have that excuse. They know who she is, but they aren't telling. Nor do they apparently feel like doing any serious investigation of her claims, except to wrap an absurd, fanciful tale around it.

THE AUTHORS RESPOND

In summer 2003, Mary Bennett and David Percy responded to claims made here and elsewhere regarding the suspicious aspects of Una Ronald's claims.

(Paraphrasing their critics) Since the residents of Perth were able to see the live images on their TVs that Coke bottle is in this lady's imagination.