Will Earth lose gravity in 2026? Viral ‘Project Anchor’ claim sparks panic, NASA responds

A viral claim warning of catastrophic consequences if Earth were to “lose gravity” for seven seconds in August 2026 has spread rapidly across social media, drawing millions of views and fuelling speculation about hidden NASA projects and impending global disaster. The theory centres on a supposed leaked document and coincides with a real astronomical event, but scientists say the premise itself misunderstands how gravity works.

At the centre of the rumour is a claim that Earth will experience a brief “gravitational anomaly” on 12 August 2026, a date that also happens to coincide with a total solar eclipse. According to posts circulating online, the event would trigger mass casualties, atmospheric collapse and widespread geological destruction. NASA has rejected the claim outright.

The viral theory and its claims

The conspiracy theory alleges the existence of a leaked NASA document titled Project Anchor, supposedly made public in November 2024. According to the posts, the document describes a seven-second loss of gravity that would result in “40 million deaths from falls”, long-term economic collapse and global panic. Some versions of the claim assert that NASA quietly allocated $89 billion (£66bn) to mitigate the damage.


The theory gained further traction through short-form videos on TikTok and YouTube, with users linking the alleged anomaly to the upcoming solar eclipse. Many of those videos point viewers to an older explainer uploaded in 2020 by the YouTube science channel What If, which explores a purely hypothetical scenario in which Earth suddenly loses gravity.

NASA’s response: gravity does not switch off

According to an email from a NASA spokesperson, the agency told Snopes in unequivocal terms that the claim was untrue, stressing that there is no scientific mechanism by which Earth could suddenly lose its gravity.

“The Earth will not lose gravity on Aug. 12, 2026. Earth’s gravity, or total gravitational force, is determined by its mass. The only way for the Earth to lose gravity would be for the Earth system, the combined mass of its core, mantle, crust, ocean, terrestrial water, and atmosphere, to lose mass.”
NASA also addressed the eclipse connection explicitly:
“A total solar eclipse has no unusual impact on Earth’s gravity. The gravitational attraction of the Sun and Moon on the Earth, which doesn’t impact Earth’s total gravity, but does impact tidal forces, is well understood and is predictable decades in advance.” In other words, gravity is not something that can pause briefly and resume. It is a consequence of Earth’s mass, and losing it would require the planet itself to lose mass on a catastrophic scale.

What the hypothetical video describes

The YouTube video most frequently cited in social posts was originally uploaded in 2020 to the What If science channel. It lays out a hypothetical chain reaction if Earth were to lose gravity, even briefly. The video explains that people positioned along the equator would experience the effects most intensely, because the planet spins faster there than it does at the poles, increasing outward momentum if gravity were suddenly removed.

From there, it imagines immediate physical consequences. Anything not firmly anchored to the ground, people, vehicles, animals, trees, would lift off the surface. Bodies of water would no longer remain contained: rivers, lakes and oceans would rise and spread into the air, creating what the video describes as mid-air flooding as vast amounts of liquid leave the planet’s surface.

The atmosphere, the video suggests, would begin to unravel as well. With gravity no longer holding gases in place, oxygen and other components of the air would start drifting into space. At the same time, a rapid drop in air pressure would cause severe trauma to the human body. Internally, the planet itself would be affected. Gravity normally compresses Earth’s interior; without it, the core would begin to expand, placing enormous stress on the crust and triggering widespread earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The scenario continues with the claim that, when gravity returned, anything suspended in the air would fall back to the surface at once, compounding the destruction and dramatically increasing casualties. The scale of harm, the video argues, would not come from a single cause but from a combination of flying debris, oxygen loss, flooding and simultaneous geological disasters.



Crucially, the video presents this as a thought experiment rather than a prediction. It does not argue that such an event is physically plausible, a distinction that has largely been stripped away as fragments of the scenario circulate across social platforms without context.

Why the scenario cannot occur

As NASA notes, Earth’s gravity is inseparable from its mass. For gravity to disappear, the planet would have to lose its core, mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere, an event that would itself render any discussion of survival academic.

The only real astronomical event scheduled for 12 August 2026 is a total solar eclipse. While eclipses affect how sunlight reaches Earth, they do not alter gravitational forces. The pull exerted by the Sun and Moon changes tides, not gravity itself.

There is no evidence of a project called Project Anchor, no budget allocation tied to gravitational containment, and no mechanism by which Earth’s gravity could briefly “switch off” and restart.

The viral theory, scientists say, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of basic physics rather than a suppressed scientific risk.