A shocking conspiracy theory claims NASA has been working on a plan to survive a doomsday-like event that would kill millions worldwide.
A terrifying theory claims that the world will suddenly lose gravity for a handful of seconds on Wednesday, sending all life into a panic as billions float off the ground.
The wild conspiracy, which has been widely shared online since December 2025, alleged that NASA secretly detected the gravitational waves of two black holes which collided millions of years ago heading toward Earth like a killer beam of energy.
Those waves would be so powerful that they would cancel out the force which holds all life from simply floating off the planet for 7.3 seconds at 10.33am ET on August 12, 2026.
Knowledge of the world-changing catastrophe was allegedly kept hidden in a classified NASA document called Project Anchor.
Images of the supposedly leaked document from 2024 claimed that the space agency was working on a $89 billion plan to expand underground bunkers, install hidden tethering systems on critical buildings and prepare for up to 900 million deaths as people worldwide came crashing back down to Earth after seven seconds of zero gravity.
Many of the posts seen on Instagram and TikTok which shared the conspiracy and alleged NASA files have disappeared since they first went viral eight months ago.
However, conspiracy theorists continue to share and believe the controversial claims, even after NASA publicly denounced the story as a complete work of fiction.
A NASA spokesperson declared: ‘The Earth will not lose gravity on [August] 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.’
The sensational rumor appeared to start around December 31, 2025, with a post from an Instagram user known as @mr_danya_of.
In a lengthy post, the user wrote: ‘On August 12, 2026, the world will lose gravity for seven seconds. NASA knows. They’re preparing but won’t tell us why.’
They also claimed that this would cause millions of deaths from falls, the destruction of infrastructure and an economic collapse projected to last for over a decade.
Skeptics have pointed out how many of the content creator’s posts seemed to be AI-generated stories promoting outlandish conspiracy theories.
However, this particular claim continued to gain a following, even after the user stopped posting in January and the gravity claims were eventually taken off of their account.
One person asked: ‘If this is fake, why does it have a date, a project name, and a budget?’
‘Just curious as to what you plan on hanging onto if we lose gravity on August 12?’ another person wrote on social media this month.
Despite many seemingly preparing for an apocalyptic event Wednesday morning, others have mocked the gravity-cancelling claims – noting that science behind it simply does not add up.
Podcast host and conspiracy investigator AJ Gentile of The Why Files said: ‘It’s pure fiction… NASA has never monitored gravitational waves that could intersect near Earth. That’s not how gravitational waves even work. They’re ripples in spacetime itself, not beams that can collide.’
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have explained that by the time gravity waves from a black hole reaches Earth from billions of light-years away, they are extraordinarily weak.
As for why August 12, 2026 was apparently chosen as the date for this elaborate hoax, the day converges with a number of real cosmic events taking place in the solar system that have historically been tied to doomsday prophecies.
Early Wednesday morning, a six-planet celestial alignment – often called a planet parade – will see Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune become visible together in the pre-dawn sky.
In the US, the best viewing window along the East Coast will be between 5.18 am and 5.34 am ET.
A real total solar eclipse also occurs on Wednesday, which NASA has said will be seen across parts of the northern US, from Alaska to North Carolina, as well as most of Canada, Europe and northwestern Africa.
For those on the East Coast of the US, the eclipse is expected to begin just after 1pm ET.
