Well for one thing, the planets are not currently aligned. And for another, even if they were, the gravitational forces involved would not be enough to influence jack-shit here on Earth.
So, yeah, absolute bullshit.
I've also been told by other people that it's not planetary alignment, it's because it's the summer solstice... Do you see what's wrong with that?
Yeah, I don't get what the alignment would mean, unless this "solstice" stuff means...
...OH MY GOD. NIGHTMARE MOON IS GONNA BRING ABOUT ETERNAL NIGHT! THE PROPHECIES ARE TRUE!!!
*ahem* Yeah, sorry. I just couldn't help but mock this. Doesn't individual gravity of the planets and even combined gravity mean fuck all compared to the sun's gravitational well? That is, even if the planets did "align" in any meaningful sense, so what?
Right, B-Man. While the planets do exert some measure of gravitational effect on the sun (and each other to some small degree,) the only noticeable effect is a small "wobble" in the sun. That's how a lot of exo-planets have been found over the past 20 years or so.
Jupiter, being the largest and most massive of the planets in our solar system (it has more mass than all the other bodies in the solar system combined, excluding the sun of course) has a far greater gravity well than any other planet. That is why the asteroid belt is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars; Jupiter has "corralled" them into their orbits and they have been effectively neutralized between the gravities of Jupiter and the sun. Jupiter has a total of 64 known moons, nearly half of which are thought to be 'captured" bodies which strayed too close to the planet. Some of them orbit in retro-grade, meaning they orbit in the opposite direction than they should. Of that total, two of them were discovered as recently as 2010, so there may be more we haven't found yet. It has been speculated in fact, that Jupiter is a failed star, lacking enough mass, therefore gravity, to have enough internal pressures to cause combustion.
However, even with Jupiter's massive gravity, if all the planets in the solar system were to align on the same side of the sun, there wouldn't be enough of a pull to cause any more than a little bit larger bulge than normal on that side of the sun. However, for all the planets to be in alignment is an extremely rare occurrence.
