For weeks, social feeds have been flooded with breathless warnings that Earth will briefly “turn off” gravity for seven seconds in August 2026, sending people and objects floating into the air. The claim, dressed up with fake NASA memos and dramatic casualty estimates, has spread so widely that the agency has now stepped in to shut it down. I am taking a closer look at what NASA actually said, how the hoax took hold, and why basic physics makes this supposed catastrophe impossible.
NASA’s flat denial of a zero‑gravity apocalypse
NASA has not hedged its language on this one. The agency has explicitly stated that Earth will not lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, and that no credible scientific model predicts anything of the sort. In a formal response highlighted in Jakarta, NASA rejected the viral posts that claim the planet will suddenly stop pulling on people, stressing that there is no upcoming space event capable of switching off such a fundamental force. Officials framed the rumor as a textbook example of how made‑up “space news” can spiral into global panic when it is not checked against real science.
When fact checkers pressed for more detail, a spokesperson went further and addressed the specific date that keeps appearing in memes. In comments relayed after Snopes reached out, the representative said plainly that The Earth will not lose gravity on August 12, 2026, and described the story as a misunderstanding of how gravity works. That clarity matters, because the hoax has been framed as if it were an official forecast, complete with fake program names and fabricated technical language that mimic real NASA communications.
Inside the viral rumor: fake programs, big numbers, and borrowed authority
The core of the hoax is a slick narrative that reads like a disaster movie pitch. According to the posts, a secret NASA initiative called Project Anchor has discovered that Earth will briefly lose its gravitational pull, triggering a seven second window when people, cars, and even oceans will lift off the ground. Some versions claim that this event will cause 40 m deaths worldwide, a figure that appears in a widely shared graphic about Earth supposedly detaching from its normal gravitational behavior. The posts often splice in real NASA logos and photos to make the story feel official, even as the underlying “science” veers into pure fiction.
Earlier this month, a detailed breakdown of the conspiracy traced how the story jumped from fringe accounts into mainstream feeds. One investigation into the bizarre theory noted that the rumor borrows language from real space missions and sprinkles in technical‑sounding phrases to sound plausible. Another analysis pointed out that People are now believing that the earth will allegedly “lose gravity” for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, and added a dry “Yes, really” to underline how far the story has traveled from any scientific footing, as described in a Jan explainer.
What the physics actually says about Earth’s gravity
Stripped of the drama, the physics is straightforward. Gravity is not a switch that can be flipped off for a few seconds, it is a constant interaction between mass and spacetime. For Earth to “lose” gravity in the way the rumor describes, the planet would have to lose a significant portion of its mass or be yanked out of its orbit by an unimaginably powerful external force. In a televised segment, space analyst Rob Taub underscored that there is no known process that could cause Earth’s atmosphere, or any other part of the planet, to lose enough mass to change gravity in this way, a point he made while discussing a classic NASA image of Earth taken from 36,000 nautical miles away in FILE. The laws of motion and gravitation that govern satellites, tides, and planetary orbits leave no room for a sudden seven second outage.
NASA has also leaned on the work of Albert Einstein to explain why the rumor makes no sense. In its formal rebuttal, the agency emphasized that Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime around massive objects, a framework that has been confirmed by everything from planetary motion to GPS satellites, as highlighted in a TEMPO summary. A separate explainer on Why gravity on Earth will “weaken” noted that any real change in Earth’s gravitational field would unfold over immense timescales, long before gravity was completely lost, and that NASA has issued an official denial of any abrupt event, as detailed in a piece on Why the current panic is misplaced.
Fact checks dismantle “Project Anchor” and other invented details
Once the rumor began to spike, professional debunkers started pulling on its loose threads. A detailed review of the supposed Project Anchor program found that Gizmodo and Snopes could locate zero evidence that such a project exists or that any NASA document ever predicted a seven second gravity failure, concluding bluntly that There is no apocalypse, as summarized in a Jan report. Another fact check noted that the viral posts recycle old hoaxes about planetary alignments and “zero gravity days,” simply swapping in a new date and a more cinematic script.
NASA itself has been pulled into the fact‑checking cycle. In one widely shared correction, the agency is quoted refuting a claim that it had warned of a catastrophic event tied to an upcoming eclipse, stressing that the eclipse will pose no danger and that the gravity rumor is unrelated to any real mission, a point captured in a NASA rebuttal. A separate social media Fact Check framed the story more bluntly, stating that NASA has denied that the Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds on August 12, 2026, and labeling the claim a viral hoax about Earth that misuses space education hashtags to gain traction.
How social media turned fringe pseudoscience into a global scare
What began as a fringe rumor has become a case study in how quickly pseudoscience can scale. On Instagram, short videos and reels with dramatic music and captions like Earth Loses Gravity have racked up large view counts, often opening with “You” as if addressing each viewer personally before launching into the fabricated scenario, as seen in a trending Earth Loses Gravity clip. Another post, shared by a news‑branded account, repeats the claim that Earth will lose gravity for 7 seconds on August 12 and has at least 43 likes and 2 comments, while noting that no credible scientific agency has endorsed the idea and that it contradicts our current understanding of gravity, as documented in a Jan post.
Some science communicators have tried to turn the panic into a teachable moment. One educational reel opens with a calm “take a breath” before explaining that the viral claim that Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds is just another example of mixing real astronomical events with fictional science, and that viewers should look for confirmation from established observatories before sharing such content, as shown in a trending.ai breakdown. Another graphic fact check stresses that a viral rumor claiming Earth will lose gravity for 7 seconds is not supported by any observatory or space agency and urges people to treat it as a space event with fictional science, echoing the language used in a Jan clarification.
More from Morning Overview