Another day, another pea-brained conspiracy theory that manages to bring together complementarily high levels of stupidity and insanity.
You may have encountered a slew of claims on Reddit, TikTok, and elsewhere in recent days purporting that “the world will lose gravity for seven seconds” this August. The stupendously dumb copypasta goes on to claim that NASA “knows” about this and is “preparing,” linking the conspiracy theory to a purported project from the agency dubbed “Project Anchor.”
Below, we take a closer look at the false claim, which—to be absolutely, irrefutably clear—is total bullshit. Put another way, it appears far too many people have failed to heed ASAP Rocky’s timely call to refrain from dumbness.
Where does this false “the world will lose gravity for seven seconds” claim come from?
That’s not entirely clear, but numerous posts appear to have merely copied-and-pasted the exact same (and decidedly lengthy) false claim. The copypasta in question opens with a claim that “the world will lose gravity for seven seconds” on Aug. 12 of this year. NASA, the copypasta further claims, is “preparing but won’t tell us why.”
Up to 60 million “expected casualties” are also mentioned, as are “underground bunkers” for political leaders and others deemed “essential.” There’s even more to it than that, but given how stupid it is, we’ll just stop there.
Of course, this particular conspiracy theory is wildly ridiculous on its face, meaning one should easily be able to dismiss it without needing to do a deep-dive. Still, if one wanted to do so, simply consult Snopes. The fact-checking site has already shared a debunking of this claim. As you’ll recall, we previously highlighted Snopes as a go-to resource for combating false claims in a recent issue of Complex Magazine.
What has NASA said about this abject bullshittery?
When reached for comment by Complex on Friday (Jan. 16), a NASA spokesperson confirmed what everyone already should have known on their own while also directing readers to check out the agency’s actual work studying gravity.
“The Earth will not lose gravity on Aug. 12, 2026,” the spokesperson told Complex. “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. 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.”