the.com/false trail

means A deliberately misleading track or clue laid down to send pursuers, investigators, or thinkers in the wrong direction.

from Comes straight from the literal hunting trail — the scent or tracks an animal leaves. 'False' here keeps its old, blunt sense of 'deceptive, counterfeit,' from Latin falsus, 'deceived or deceiving' (the past participle of fallere, 'to deceive'). Hunters and trackers used 'false trail' or 'false scent' quite literally for a trail that fools the hounds — a fox doubling back, a scent gone cold on purpose. The phrase later loped off into general use for any deceptive clue or argument, but it never lost that whiff of the chase: something is always being hunted, and something is always trying not to be caught.