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This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The main problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, either by adding something to the wells or modifying the rain (if you have the technology). In a case like this, you can get the radiation to become fairly insignificant by the time humans can measure it by choosing an isotope with a suitable half-life. Water with Tritium, refreshed every five or so years, could work wonders on your population.

Alternatively, you could make a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and people at that time would likely notice little else than "being in the sun makes you sick". I am not sure what would have to be done to recover it later.

For the "thousands years in advance" part, you're going to have some logistic issues. Robots that manufacture and distribute whatever it is you need and then self-destruct are probably the best option.

As an alternative that takes that into account, they could have launched a spaceship containing a radioactive compounds at speeds near that of light. If it were to keep going at that speed and crash back into the Earth, far less time will have passed for it than for the planet, which would mean that rapidly-decaying particles wouldn't have decayed yet. This could then be written off by the Romans as a meteorite impact.

This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The main problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, either by adding something to the wells or modifying the rain (if you have the technology). In a case like this, you can get the radiation to become fairly insignificant by the time humans can measure it by choosing an isotope with a suitable half-life. Water with Tritium, refreshed every five or so years, could work wonders on your population.

Alternatively, you could make a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and people at that time would likely notice little else than "being in the sun makes you sick". I am not sure what would have to be done to recover it later.

For the "thousands years in advance" part, you're going to have some logistic issues. Robots that manufacture and distribute whatever it is you need and then self-destruct are probably the best option.

As an alternative that takes that into account, they could have launched a spaceship containing a radioactive compounds at speeds near that of light. If it were to keep going at that speed and crash back into the Earth, far less time will have passed for it than for the planet, which would mean that rapidly-decaying particles wouldn't have decayed yet. This could then be written off by the Romans as a meteorite impact.

This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The main problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, either by adding something to the wells or modifying the rain (if you have the technology). In a case like this, you can get the radiation to become fairly insignificant by the time humans can measure it by choosing an isotope with a suitable half-life. Water with Tritium, refreshed every five or so years, could work wonders on your population.

Alternatively, you could make a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and people at that time would likely notice little else than "being in the sun makes you sick". I am not sure what would have to be done to recover it later.

This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The main problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, either by adding something to the wells or modifying the rain (if you have the technology). In a case like this, you can get the radiation to become fairly insignificant by the time humans can measure it by choosing an isotope with a suitable half-life. Water with Tritium, refreshed every five or so years, could work wonders on your population.

Alternatively, you could make a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and people at that time would likely notice little else than "being in the sun makes you sick". I am not sure what would have to be done to recover it later.

For the "thousands years in advance" part, you're going to have some logistic issues. Robots that manufacture and distribute whatever it is you need and then self-destruct are probably the best option.

As an alternative that takes that into account, they could have launched a spaceship containing a radioactive compounds at speeds near that of light. If it were to keep going at that speed and crash back into the Earth, far less time will have passed for it than for the planet, which would mean that rapidly-decaying particles wouldn't have decayed yet. This could then be written off by the Romans as a meteorite impact.

This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The first problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, and it is feasible that it may be filtered out again in seventy years. The downside of this is that anyone with a Geiger counter is going to notice that there's something up with their water, and will probably refuse to drink it/request an investigation. If you have sufficiently advanced technology, you can make the rain radioactive, which will make it look more natural.

Another option is to require everyone to have a regular check-up with their doctor during which they may be irradiated. Radiation in this context is likely to cause suspicion, though people would probably still notice. It certainly doesn't fit your "freak-of-nature" explanation, though.

As yet another option, you could try making a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and it could look natural, though many people would certainly notice.

Counter-edit: Given your edit, I'm no longer sure what technology you assume people that might notice the radiation have. If you're asking for a way to irradiate Belgium without anyone noticing in 500 CE, any way is going to be just fine. Apart from increased cases of radiation poisoning, people will have no way of telling what's going on.

This sounds a lot like How do I drug a population in the most efficient way?.

The main problem I see is that radiation just doesn't work that way. To my best knowledge, you cannot create a "special kind" of radiation that will cause particular mutations. You can limit the effect to certain cells by only irradiating those, but most mutations will still not be very effective. Decreasing the power won't make it any more effective; it'll just make both harmful and non-harmful mutations less common.

Disregarding that, my suggestion would be to put it in the water. It's the easiest place to rapidly start adding a substance to, either by adding something to the wells or modifying the rain (if you have the technology). In a case like this, you can get the radiation to become fairly insignificant by the time humans can measure it by choosing an isotope with a suitable half-life. Water with Tritium, refreshed every five or so years, could work wonders on your population.

Alternatively, you could make a whole in the ozone layer. That would increase radiation, and people at that time would likely notice little else than "being in the sun makes you sick". I am not sure what would have to be done to recover it later.