Given present-day Earth as we know it, how could I fake a radio transmission as coming from a distant star?

Setting: Western world nation, Earth as we know it, May 2016, Gregorian calendar. Eccentric billionaire, large multinational corporation or similar; lots of money, and ability to enlist the help of some really smart people.

Let's say that I, for some nefarious or benevolent purpose (doesn't matter) want to make it seem like there is intelligent life out in the universe, and that they have something important to teach us Earthlings. Let's say that I have determined that the best way to do this is to transmit a signal of apparent extraterrestrial intelligent origin toward Earth at a time when I know that someone will be listening in that direction.

I have figured out the details of what to transmit, how to modulate the signal, which frequency to use, how to masquerade the launch so as to not attract unwanted attention, and every other such preliminary item on the checklist.

I have the ability to launch spacecraft (maybe myself, maybe by paying a commercial launch services company). I also have the ability to design and build a satellite or probe to make the transmission, and make it seem sufficiently legitimate to (again) not attract unwanted attention. I have the money for several such spacecraft and am willing to spend it if doing so significantly improves my chances of success. I can make things happen in such a way that it's very hard to trace it all back to me.

There's just one tiny problem left.

Given that I have all this down pat, in the face of a reasonably expectable level of scrutiny, how can I make the transmission appear to originate from a distant star?

I don't really care which star, but if possible would like for it to be one that is something like 20-60 lightyears away. Ideally one that is known to host a planet that is potentially at least non-hostile to life as we know it, but that is less important than that the transmission will genuinely appear to originate from well outside of our solar system.

posted almost 8 years ago

Canina‭

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