Viral Claims: Boxes of Ticks Found on Missouri Farms

Based on the frequencies of shares I've seen on social media, you probably have come across many claiming that boxes of ticks have been found on Missouri farms, but are they true? The answer is complicated.

I first saw this shared on Reddit. It's alleged reports of boxes of ticks on farms and that includes Missouri.

Boxes of ticks on farms?
by
u/Righteous-Biscuit in
conspiracy

There have been many videos on TikTok that are adding to the rumor of tick boxes on Missouri farms.

@kayoffscript_7

♬ original sound -

There have been so many rumors about boxes of ticks in Missouri that Snopes felt the need to debunk it. Or, at least they're trying. They just dropped "Have Missouri farmers reported finding 'boxes of ticks' in fields?". They concluded that there is no hard evidence that this is really happening. When they contacted the originator of the rumor, she declined to name the farmers who reported the boxes of ticks due to privacy concerns.

Why would anyone want to put a box of ticks on a Missouri farm anyway?

The tin foil hat crowd has a theory that there are companies who are genetically engineering the ticks to contain diseases because they are manufacturing a...solution to those diseases. I won't use the actual word because that's taboo, but you understand what I'm talking about. For the record, I don't mean to offend the conspiracy theory crowd as I enjoy quite a few myself (don't even get me started on The Mandela Effect), but I prefer to have a little more proof of my beloved conspiracy theories which means I need to see pictures of the boxes with ticks in them and/or a farmer who's willing to come forward and confirm that it's true.

Are there boxes of ticks being dropped on Missouri farms?

There's no conclusive way to prove it isn't happening, but no one has proved it is happening either, so I'll leave it at that.