No, Earth will not lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12

A viral hoax claims a secret NASA program called "Project Anchor" is bracing for Earth to lose gravity during the August 12 eclipse. NASA has denied it and the physics rules it out completely.

In 40 words. A viral post claims Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, under a secret NASA program called "Project Anchor." NASA denies the program exists, and gravity cannot switch off without the planet losing its mass.

If your feed has shown you a countdown to "zero gravity for seven seconds," you are looking at one of the fastest spreading science hoaxes of the year, and it happens to share a date with a real event, the total solar eclipse of August 12.

What the viral post actually claims

The story traces back to a single Instagram account, now deleted, that posted on December 31, 2025. It described a document called "Project Anchor," supposedly leaked in November 2024, budgeted at $89 billion, built to prepare world governments for a seven second loss of gravity at 14:33 UTC on August 12, 2026. The post gave a second by second script, people start floating within two seconds, rise 15 to 20 meters by the fourth second, then crash back down when gravity snaps back at 7.3 seconds, with a death toll estimated at 40 to 60 million. The proposed cause was two colliding black holes sending a gravitational wave through Earth, an event the post claimed was "predicted in 2019 with 94.7% probability." On Instagram alone the claim gathered roughly 62,000 likes and 268,000 shares before spreading to TikTok and YouTube.

What NASA actually said

Asked directly by fact checkers at Snopes, a NASA spokesperson stated that Earth's gravity is determined by its mass, and the only way for the planet to lose gravity would be for the Earth system, its core, mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere, to actually lose mass. NASA added that a total solar eclipse has no unusual effect on gravity at all. There is no record of a program named "Project Anchor," no $89 billion line item in any public budget, and no leaked document that fact checkers have been able to locate.

Why the physics makes it impossible

Gravity is not a switch, it is a direct consequence of mass. Earth weighs about 5.97 x 10²⁴ kilograms, and that mass is what bends spacetime enough to hold you, the oceans and the atmosphere in place. Removing that pull for even a moment would require removing the mass itself, which is not something two colliding black holes light years away can do to a planet.

Gravitational waves are real, LIGO and its partner observatories detect them, but they are ripples so faint that finding one requires measuring a distortion smaller than a fraction of a proton's width. The strongest wave ever recorded would not visibly lift so much as a pencil off a desk, let alone a person 15 meters into the air. And even in the story's own version of events, the physics breaks down, losing gravity would leave you floating in place, not launch you upward, since nothing would be pushing you off the ground.

Why this one spread so well

Three things gave "Project Anchor" its momentum. A real, unrelated astronomical event, Spain's total eclipse, landing on the same calendar date lent the claim borrowed credibility. A specific time, a named budget and a percentage figure made it read like a leaked briefing rather than a rumor. And the "secret program to protect elites" framing taps into a distrust that spreads faster than the correction does, as IFLScience noted in its own breakdown of the claim.

The real news for August 12 has nothing to do with gravity. It is a total solar eclipse crossing Spain at sunset, and if you want safe glasses to watch it, that is the only preparation worth making.

Frequently asked questions

Will Earth lose gravity on August 12, 2026?

No. NASA has confirmed there is no such event planned or possible, and gravity depends on Earth's mass, which is not changing on that date.

What is "Project Anchor"?

A name invented for a viral hoax. No government budget, leaked document or NASA program by that name has ever been found by fact checkers.

Could a gravitational wave make people float?

No. Even the strongest gravitational waves ever detected produce distortions far too small to be felt by a human body, let alone lift one off the ground.

Is the August 12 eclipse connected to this hoax?

Only by date. A real total solar eclipse crosses Spain that day, and the hoax borrowed its credibility from that coincidence, not from any shared mechanism.

Sources

• Snopes, fact check on the "Project Anchor" gravity claim
• NASA Space Place, what is gravity
• IFLScience, why the August 12 zero gravity rumor is false