In recent weeks, the rumor that the Earth will “lose gravity” for 7 seconds on August 12, 2026, has caused an uproar on the Internet. Social media users have warned that this disaster will kill tens of millions of people and even say – perhaps more disturbingly – that NASA knows this is coming and is deliberately silent.
These wild claims appeared in a comment posted by Instagram user @mr_danya_of on December 31, 2025, whose account was no longer available a few days later. The video showed a man sitting in a car, not speaking, while the overlaid text reads: “In November 2024, a secret NASA document entitled “Project Anchor” was leaked online. The project’s budget is 89 billion dollars, and its goal is to survive the mysterious 7-second gravity event expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC. [10:33 a.m. ET].”
The document went on to say that this disturbance will come from the collision of two gravitational waves from black holes, which NASA predicted in 2019 with a probability of 94.7%. It also said the agency was “building underground shelters” to provide shelter for government leaders, scientists, soldiers and “selected citizens of diverse genetic backgrounds” during the event.
Of course, this is all completely fake. Neither Gizmodo nor Snopes, a fact-checking and investigative reporting website, found any evidence to support the existence of Project Anchor or the alleged leaked documents. When Snopes contacted NASA about the rumor, a spokesperson said exactly what we’re all thinking: That’s not how gravity works.
A gravity primer for internet conspiracy theorists
In their response, a NASA spokesperson cleverly pointed out that the Earth’s gravity is determined by its mass. “The only way for Earth to lose gravity would be for the Earth system, the combined weight of its core, mantle, crust, oceans, terrestrial water, and atmosphere, to lose weight,” they wrote, according to Snopes.
Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes gravity not as a force, as Newton did, but as a curvature of space-time. Large objects such as planets twist the fabric of space-time around them, and even larger objects move in curved paths created by this distortion, which you see as gravity.
Imagine you are placing a bowling ball (Earth) on a stretched rubber sheet (spacetime). The bowling ball will stretch the rubber and sink, creating depression. Now, imagine you are placing a ping pong ball (a small large object) on the edge of the sheet. It will roll in the direction of the bowling ball because it has to move in a deformed position due to the presence of a heavy object.
General relativity is one of the most tested theories in science and is still our best explanation of how gravity works. There is no evidence to suggest that the crossover of two gravitational waves from black holes would cause the Earth to lose mass and subsequent gravity, but even if there was, this “predicted” crossover of gravitational waves is a complete myth.
There is no black hole catastrophe, just a solar eclipse
Neither Snopes nor Gizmodo could find any evidence to support the claim that NASA had predicted that two gravitational waves from black holes would intersect on August 12. However, the agency’s website says that a solar eclipse will occur on that day.
“A total solar eclipse has no unusual effect on Earth’s gravity,” a NASA spokesperson told Snopes. “The gravitational attraction of the Sun and the Moon on Earth, which does not affect Earth’s gravity, but affects the dynamics of the oceans, is well understood and predicted decades in advance.”
According to NASA, totality will be visible in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia, and a small part of Portugal, while most of Europe, Africa, and North America will be partially eclipsed. So while there’s no need to prepare for a global catastrophe, August 12 should still be marked on your calendar if you don’t want to miss the spectacular celestial event.
