People gather round the Christmas tree, the fountain, the dustbin … gather around the object of your choice and celebrate. The time has come for 2022’s Top of the Croppies; the latest instalment in our annual look at the movers and shakers amongst the heroes and (sadly, more often than not) skip-delvers of the crop circle world. Who will be crying that they’ve missed out? Who will be moping around at their inclusion on the shortlist? Read on to learn more about the losers, winners and our 2022 champion…

Ah, not everyone can make it onto the Top of the Croppies shortlist, with some very worthy candidates missing out. It goes without saying that Monique Klinkenbergh does a wonderful job with the Crop Circle Exhibition and Information Centre at Honeystreet; Nick Bull and Hugh Newman doing similar with their excellent drone photography. Unfortunately, following a very disillusioning 2021, Paul Jacobs has been absent from the fields of Wiltshire where he would normally be collecting £3 admission fees for farmers. At time of writing we’ve heard that he’s feeling a bit more positive about the reception he’s getting on social media at the back end of 2022 … probably because he’s blocked everyone who disagrees with him on the origins of all but the crudest circles. We were also enthralled by Igor Eeckhaut and the manner in which he caused 2022’s A Night of Crop Circling event to overrun by linking swans, caves and all sorts of weirdness to a 2011 sighting of the lesser spotted Roderick. Just a shame he let his kids run riot in the first of the Etchilhampton circles. Finally, we come to 2021’s champion Richard Skerman. The most soot-brained individual in croppiedom is only mentioned for having possibly having lost a lot of money on cryptocurrency, and for running a sewer (one that facilitates rape threats and racism) masquerading as a circles group on Facebook. Apparently the group is a social experiment although nobody seems to have any idea of its purpose, Richard included. Instead, he merely shrugs his shoulders and posts weird comments without context or any obvious relationship to the issues under discussion.

So, onto the main list…

First up we have George Vernon, otherwise known as Mystic Merlin. This chap used to be a minor croppie legend, dressed in his robes and hawking his board games around the pubs of Wiltshire. He even claimed involvement in the legendary Operation Blackbird hoax of 1990. The convicted racist jailbird reappeared in 2022 to throw Islamophobic nonsense around on a crop circles Facebook group. We’ll be straight up: the man is a piece of shit and we’ll waste no more words on this imbecile.

Trite wannabe YouTube influencer Guy Cross entered 2022 nursing a sore behind having not got his way with crop circle makers the previous summer. Like an entitled child he had demanded to know the secrets of the fields for his world-changing channel, but found himself snubbed by all but convicted criminals, drug addicts and alcoholics. Being unused to rejection, this setback clearly stung Guy in all of the wrong places. Out of weepy-eyed bitterness he spent 2022 sobbing about every crop circle he thought made by those who had given him short-thrift, all the whilst crying that he’d been picked on and (laughably) threatened. He even went crying to help for someone who would end the year with two restraining orders, a suspended sentence, community service order and a criminal conviction for harassment. Not a good look, but perfectly in keeping with the criminal company he already courted.

Unable to restrain himself, Guy then took to criticising the appearance of others. It was an interesting step, devoid of any semblance of irony or self-awareness given his own beautiful self:

No more need be said but this: Guy, you may believe yourself to be one third of the Holy Trinity, but people in glass houses ‘n’ all that. You’re no better than anyone else, no matter what you think. We look forward to the next threat of you ‘taking things further’.

Finally, someone of worth. Croppie Kathy Mingo has been on the scene for a long while, but in 2022 she acquired a drone and an immediate knack for being first to the scene of new crop circles. David Icke fan Kathy was even beating the Crop Circle Connector to the punch. But how was she doing it? Is she in deeper than we know? Rumours continue to circulate of a liaison between ‘Bingo’ Mingo and a very well known crop circle photographer with a farming connection. And if they’re true … Well, good luck to them. They will make a beautiful couple.

Guy Shepherd seems something of a good egg resembling one of those well spoken types from the Centre for Crop Circle Studies circa 1991. He used to be a familiar figure in croppie social media but largely disappeared at the back end of 2021, having been sniped at for having dared to make some rather beautiful crop circle jewellery. Throughout 2022 we missed Shepherd’s photographs and perspectives on the circles and were about to give up on him. Then, Shephered appeared as a speaker at A Night of Crop Circling and produced a rather wonderul and poetic A to Z of crop circles. We’re not sure if it has been reproduced online but it was our highlight of the evening. Anyone who was present would be well served to reflect on Guy’s words and the ridiculous circus that some parts of crop circle social media have always been.

Real life conferences in the crop circle world have become few and far between. The Alexanders moved their event online and wacky Francine Blake gave up the ghost some time ago. Fortunately, we still have Dutch croppie Roeland Beljon and his annual A Night of Crop Circling event. For 2022 it was back at the Coronation Hall and as beautifully surreal as ever. We had harp music, speakers in transparent clothing, a Belgian guy mistaking circle makers in East Field for aliens (then going on about swans in caves, or something), crop circle linked COVID-19 conspiracies and even past Top of the Croppies contender Guy Shepherd delivering a deftly composed A to Z of crop circles. There was everything to love — including Randell Sarneel’s views on crop circles and ascension — and we hope to see more of it in 2023! Good work, Roeland.

If you read crop circle groups on Facebook you really can’t have missed the endless succession of posts and replies featuring images of crop circles that have been partially coloured or blacked out. These relentlessly spammed pieces are from the mind of American croppie Gumercindo Gonzalez, a man who is 100% real, despite some of the conspiracy theories doing the rounds. Having engaged in conversation with him, Gumercindo has a method behind the oddness of his posts: colour in a crop circle photo and you will see faces of well known political figures like Donald Trump and Saddam Hussein. For real. These malevolent forces are tied in with the Mowing Devil, a naughty demon who makes circles of his own and can manipulate human circle makers. He’s in on the arrival of COVID-19 and helps kill Mexicans trying to make it across the border into the USA.

Don’t fret though as Gumercindo believes he will be able to battle that naughty Mowing Devil and make the world a better place. Thank goodness we have such a hero in our midst.

Normally we’d just dismiss such wackiness but it’s tough to dislike Gumercindo for the seemingly innocent weirdness that comes out in his endless messages to us: ‘Don’t forget crop the crunch warp means no more chalupas.’ Of course it does. ‘Mexican looking for better live but the mowing devil can use hand made crop circles made by people in planet earth too okay have enjoy life in egland thank you again.’

Of course, we’ve no idea what Gumercindo actually means with any of this stuff, but we have to admire his cheery, optimistic stance. The voice messages he sends are both heart breaking and amusing at the same time. He even wished us a happy Christmas. We think he wants to do the right thing for the world but just needs guiding in the right direction. In the meantime, we hope he keeps spamming, sending us voicemails and being totally off the wall. Gumercindo Gonzalez truly deserves his title as the winner of Top of the Croppies 2022.