The "Project Anchor" claim originated from an unverified Instagram conspiracy post and spread rapidly across social media, alleging that Earth would experience a complete loss of gravity for seven seconds on a specific date in August 2026. The story attached itself to the upcoming solar eclipse as a supposed trigger, lending it a veneer of astronomical credibility — but no such mechanism exists in physics.
NASA directly addressed the claim in a statement to Snopes, saying: "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 is for it to lose mass." A solar eclipse — the Moon passing between Earth and the Sun — does not remove any mass from the Earth system and therefore cannot alter its gravitational force.
The only real eclipse-related gravity effects are minuscule: localized tidal variations on the order of 0.0000178%, and atmospheric gravity waves measured by NASA student teams. These are ordinary, well-understood phenomena — not a "loss of gravity." Multiple outlets including BGR, the Times of India, and The Economic Times have independently debunked the Project Anchor claim by citing NASA's unequivocal response.