Project Anchor: Anatomy of a Hoax - Skeptoid

Members Portal Support Us About Support Us About Skeptoid Subscribe to the Podcast Episode Guide Sponsor an episode What People Are Saying... What Is Skepticism? Press Room Help Subscribing Contact Privacy Topics Aliens & UFOs Alternative Medicine Ancient Mysteries Conspiracy Theories Consumer Ripoffs Cryptozoology Environment Fads Feedback & Questions General Science Health History & Pseudohistory Logic & Persuasion Natural History Paranormal Religion Urban Legends Store Community Podcast Companion Email Private Discord Channel Sponsor an episode Teachers Toolkit Answering Student Questions Help with Skeptoid Research Events Calendar Information Skeptoid Adventures Project Anchor: Anatomy of a Hoax This Internet legend claims the Earth's gravity will shut off for seven seconds in 2026. Skeptoid Podcast #1038 Filed under Conspiracy Theories by Brian Dunning April 28, 2026 Sponsor an episode! At the end of 2024, social media users announced the discovery of a secret NASA program called Project Anchor, pertaining to a seven-second loss of gravity on the Earth to occur in August 2026. Some 40 to 60 million were said to be expected to die in the event. The cause was given as “the intersection of two gravitational waves from black holes.” This claim was shared widely for some weeks. Likely most of the shares were intended with tongue in cheek, but there are always people who believe any such thing, especially anything that casts NASA as some shadowy, evil entity. Today we’re going to talk about just how we can tell, quite easily in fact, that it is a hoax. Origin of the hoax Project Anchor was initially posted on December 31, 2025 by an Instagram user called @mr_danya_of. Overlaid on a video background was a roll of text that said: On August 12, 2026, the world will lose gravity for 7 seconds. NASA knows. They're preparing but won't tell us why. In November 2024, a secret NASA document titled "Project Anchor" leaked online. The project's budget is $89 billion, and its goal is to survive a 7-second gravitational anomaly expected on August 12, 2026, at 14:33 UTC. Key facts: Duration: 7.3 seconds. Expected casualties: 40-60 million. What will happen: 1-2 seconds: Everything not secured will rise (people, vehicles, animals). 3-4 seconds: Objects will continue to rise to 15-20 meters. 5-6 seconds: Panic and chaos will ensue as people hit ceilings. 7 seconds: Gravity returns, and everything falls from height. Expected consequences: 40 million deaths from falls. Infrastructure destruction. Economic collapse lasting over 10 years. Mass panic. Reason for the anomaly: The intersection of two gravitational waves from black holes, predicted in 2019 with a probability of 94.7%. NASA has known about this for five years. What NASA is doing: Building underground bunkers for "essential personnel." Developing securing systems for buildings. Who will get spots in the bunkers: Government leaders, scientists, military personnel, and "selected citizens with genetic diversity." Why they're silent: An announcement would trigger mass panic and chaos. Better to have 40 million unprepared victims than 8 billion in a state of panic. The leak has been ignored by the media as "conspiracy theory," but an independent physicist confirmed the intersection of gravitational waves. His paper was retracted, and he has since disappeared. What you can do: Follow the "civilian survival protocol": Stay indoors with a low ceiling. Lie on the floor face down. Hold onto something secured. 20 months until the event. NASA knows. Governments are preparing. They won't tell you. It seems like a lot of trouble. If I wanted to survive seven seconds of zero gravity, I wouldn’t need a $90 billion underground bunker; I’d hold onto a tree for seven seconds, then go about my business. Now depending on when you’re listening to this, August 12, 2026 might have already come and gone. Doesn’t matter. After that date, we’ll know it didn’t happen; before that date, we know it won’t. How do we know that? Well, let’s talk about that. First of all, many of us here now — people who listen to Skeptoid and to similar shows — can probably easily tell that nothing in this makes any sense; but the vast majority of people don’t know that at all. You could stop 100 people on the street and ask them to explain why this event is impossible. How many could do so correctly? I don’t know, but I bet it’s fewer than five. So let’s lend a hand. Gravitational waves The important thing to understand is what a gravitational wave is. First of all, it would probably have the simpler name of gravity wave, and the only reason it doesn’t is that the name was already taken. Gravity waves are not very intuitively named. When you throw a rock into a lake and it makes expanding concentric waves in the water, those are gravity waves. They’re called that because gravity is what’s trying to pull the water back down after the rock splashed it up. Any wave in a fluid in which gravity is the force trying to re