Fact Check: Earth Will Not Lose Gravity for Seven Seconds on August 12

A message spreading across Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, TikTok and X claims that Earth will “lose gravity” for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, citing a secret NASA programme called “Project Anchor.” NASA says Earth’s gravity will not disappear. Searches by fact-checkers have also found no credible document, budget record or official reference supporting the alleged project.

The story in 60 seconds

• Viral posts claim a leaked NASA document, "Project Anchor," reveals Earth will experience seven seconds of zero gravity on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC.
• The posts claim the programme has an $89 billion budget and warn of "40 million deaths from falls" during the event.
• NASA has directly denied the predicted gravity loss, explaining that Earth’s gravity is determined by its mass. Separately, fact-checkers found no credible trace of the alleged “Project Anchor” document or budget.
• The claim traces to a single Instagram post from December 31, 2025, whose account was deleted days later — a common pattern in manufactured hoaxes.
• A real astronomical event is happening that day — a total solar eclipse crossing Greenland, Iceland and Spain — but it has no effect on Earth's gravity.
• This is not a new hoax format: a near-identical "planetary alignment causes weightlessness" claim was a BBC April Fools' joke in 1976, and versions of it resurface every few years.

AI SummaryAI-generated summary, reviewed by editors

A viral post cites a supposed NASA programme called “Project Anchor” and predicts seven seconds without gravity. NASA says Earth’s gravity will not disappear, and no evidence supports the alleged project.

▮▶ Switch to Shorts

What the posts actually claim

The viral posts describe "Project Anchor" as a secret NASA programme, supposedly leaked in November 2024, with a budget of $89 billion earmarked to prepare the public for a predicted seven-second loss of Earth's gravity on August 12, 2026, at exactly 14:33 UTC. Some versions add a body count, warning that up to 40 million people could die from falls during the event, and instruct readers to sit or lie down at the stated time.

The specificity is the persuasion technique. A named programme, a precise budget, an exact timestamp and a casualty estimate can look like evidence when they are merely unsupported details. The recovered screenshot shows more than 61,000 likes and 268,000 shares, illustrating how far a claim can travel without a source document.

Visual unavailable: viral-claim

Where the hoax came from

Fact-checkers trace the claim to an Instagram post published by @mr_danya_of on December 31, 2025. The post and account later became unavailable, but reposted screenshots preserved the wording and visible engagement. From there, the claim moved across Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, TikTok and X, often detached from its original account and presented as a leaked warning.

A deleted source is not proof that a claim is false. It does mean readers must rely on preserved copies and independently test every factual assertion. In this case, the central assertions fail those checks: no supporting NASA document or budget record has been produced, and the predicted event conflicts with basic physics.

Why the physics does not work

Earth's gravity is a product of its mass. As NASA put it directly in response to the claim, gravitational force is determined by mass, and Earth's mass is not changing on August 12 or any other specific date. There is no mechanism — planetary, solar or otherwise — by which a planet's gravity can switch off for a fixed number of seconds and then switch back on.

The "planetary alignment" version of this idea has circulated in different forms since the 1970s, built on a misreading of how gravitational pull actually works: even if planets lined up, their combined pull on a person standing on Earth would be a tiny fraction of the pull already coming from Earth's own mass, not a force capable of cancelling it out.

What is really happening on August 12

There is one genuine astronomical event on that date: a total solar eclipse. NASA says its path of totality crosses northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland, Spain and a small part of Portugal. The eclipse is the Moon’s shadow moving across Earth; it does not switch off gravity or produce an unusual change in Earth’s total gravitational force.

The eclipse is a plausible hook for the chosen date, although the deleted account did not provide a verifiable explanation for selecting it. Attaching an invented warning to a real event gives misinformation a kernel of truth: a quick search confirms something astronomical is happening, even though it does not confirm the gravity claim.

This hoax has a 50-year history

The core idea is not new. On April 1, 1976, British astronomer Patrick Moore told BBC Radio 2 listeners about a "Jovian–Plutonian Gravitational Effect," joking that a rare planetary alignment would let people feel weightless if they jumped at 9:47 a.m. It was an April Fools' joke — but callers reportedly rang in afterward insisting they had felt it work.

The same premise resurfaced online around 2015 as a "Zero Gravity Day" claim, stripped of its original joke context and shared as if it were a genuine NASA-linked event. Space.com and other outlets debunked it at the time. The 2026 "Project Anchor" version follows the identical shape — a specific date, a precise time, an authoritative-sounding source — updated for an era of leaked-document claims and AI-era information sharing.

How to spot the next one

1. Go to the source directly. Check the agency's own verified account or website rather than a screenshot or repost — NASA's own statement is what settled this claim.
2. Distrust suspiciously precise numbers. An exact budget, an exact timestamp down to the minute and an exact casualty count are dramatic details, not evidence.
3. Check whether the original source still exists. A deleted account with no traceable original post is a warning sign, not proof by itself.
4. Ask whether it is riding on a real event. Hoaxes often attach themselves to something genuinely happening — like the August 12 eclipse — to borrow credibility.

The verdict

False. Earth's gravity depends on its mass, not on any external alignment or agency programme, and no space agency has planned, predicted or documented a gravity-loss event on August 12, 2026.

Sources

• Fact check: Posts claim Earth will "lose gravity" for 7 seconds on Aug. 12, 2026 — Yahoo News / USA TODAY
• Will Earth lose gravity for 7 seconds on Aug. 12, 2026? The truth about the alleged NASA document — Snopes
• NASA denies claim that Earth will lose gravity for 7 seconds in August 2026 — NewsNation
• False: No evidence NASA's "Project Anchor" predicts Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds — Fact Crescendo Sri Lanka
• Zero Gravity Day: This hoax holds no weight — Space.com
• Total Solar Eclipse on August 12, 2026 — NASA Science
• Popular online theory says Earth will lose gravity for 7 seconds — Mothership, preserving the viral screenshot

Full forms

• UTC — Coordinated Universal Time