The 2025 crop circle season hummed with such a stink that The Croppie still hasn’t found the determination to write an end of year review. Punctuated by a multitude of hoaxes, wannabe influencers desperate to make friends to fill their otherwise empty lives, a glut of attention seeking desperadoes trying to pass off fakes as the real thing, misdirected finger pointing, and a few equally wayward emailed threats, The Croppie took a few months away from the circus of contemporary cerealogy.

Nonetheless, as we always say at this time every year, there is good out there, even if it does seem in short supply. Yes, there really are people out there who will stand up for crop circles and the spirit of what a crop circle truly is. Perhaps they should be the true winners of Top of The Croppies 2025, this year’s installment of our annual feature where we look back at the crop circle enthusiasts, destroyers and oddballs who have caught our collective attention over the past twelve months. Alas, rather than generalise we must reward specific contributions. So, when we get to the three-long shortlist of contenders you will find two entrants who have done something positive this year. And we are very pleased about that.

2025 has been notable in that it possessed more hoaxes than authorless crop circles. Almost all of the former have been generated by the high-flyers from Team Ten Watt, led by Dene Hine. Once described by self-aggrandising member Deiniol ‘Dan’ Davies as ‘top land artists’, these blown filaments have given us some of the year’s highpoints, including a pair of Mini Cheddars on a hilltop and a wonky spider. They also threw in some basket-weave to demonstrate that whilst the rest of the world moved on years ago, they are catching up.

‘Dunno Dunno’ doesn’t read like Deiniol Davies at all does it? We hope he’s proud of his little savoury snacks.

Individually, Hine carried on his regular habit of announcing his retirement. This year it was down to apparently suffering a stroke, though that never stopped him accepting a commission from ‘recovering artist’ Harry Pack to illegally make one of the latter’s elves in a field. Presumably it was part of some GCSE art project. As if to hide their involvement, both Hine and his client visited our Instagram account to eagerly view the derisory coverage we gave them.

Hine went on to praise another customer, whose barbers business was shut down after ‘drugs, cash and ‘high value luxury goods’ were seized during a police raid … in relation to money laundering, drug supply and organised crime’. Hine declared that business ‘iconic’ and run by ‘nice local people [who] gave back to the local community.’ That tells you all you need to know. 

Wrapping up his time in the fields for 2025, Hine produced an astonishingly off-centre ringed circle for a Lighthouse Family tribute band’s music video. You know the crop circle world is in terminal decline when this is the person companies pay to produce a thing in a field. But if nobody else is offering…

Poor Dene, being led around Salisbury Cathedral by dear friend, philanthropist and respectful crop circle student Deiniol Davies.

It was a big year for Davies too and not because he figured out how to use AI to compose the content for his new website.

Already calling himself a ‘professional crop circle maker’, Davies extended his self-given ‘Cropsy’ nickname to ‘Cropsy the Outlaw Artist’ during an interview given to a local art exhibition. It doesn’t really fit. Do outlaws run a mile and point the finger at third parties (often the females they’re eerily obsessed with) because they want to cover their tracks? Are outlaws so convinced of their cause that they wear a name label around their neck during said interview so they don’t forget what they’re all about? If you haven’t listened to that discussion, you have missed out on some of Deiniol’s philosophical reasoning. ‘I think hope’s dope. And, like … know what I mean … if you’ve got hope you’ve got something.’

Rave on, fam!

Deiniol wrapped up his 2025 season by probably walking into a Dorset field and putting down an extremely lopsided representation of a spider. Fair enough, but don’t copy the design that was on your own Facebook account until just a short time previously.

Of course, wherever those clever imps Hine and Davies go, their team of followers are not far behind. We saw Hamish Jacobs desperately attempt to big up those hilltop Mini Cheddars as ‘very nice’, going on to suggest ‘originality wins every time.’ Only those two tiny circles and their placement were far from original. 

Then there was the mysterious Facebook poster BlueGrapefruit35 who tried to tell us that ‘real’ crop circles don’t get cut out by farmers or feature within the Crop Circle Connector’s pages. Neither are they included on the online presence of the Crop Circle Visitor Centre and Exhibition. It’s all bullshit, of course. The Visitor Centre knowingly promoted Ten Watt’s hoaxes as the real thing, but it’s easy to bite the hand that feeds you when you want to be a victim.

Hine, sorry, I meant BlueGrapefruit35 also reared his head following the shite spider debacle at Cerne Abbas, suggesting the local farmer had the hoaxers caught on camera and Team Ten Watt had been dobbed into the police by other circle makers. Maybe the former is true, but the latter is complete nonsense. It isn’t in the interests of any circle maker to report another to the police. It would be a monumental own goal. As we said at the time:

‘If you’re publicly admitting responsibility for multiple hoaxes; if you’re posting your plans online either before or after a circle appears; if you’ve been vile to a large cross-section of people through the years; if you’ve written all kinds of rubbish about them; if you’re running a large Facebook group containing God knows who that may have an issue with the circles (farmers, their families, friends and local residents from their communities) and you’re assuming nobody there could have an issue with you; if you’re demeaning people who have a different opinion to you on the circles’ origins (or facilitating others to do this work) … If you’re any of the above and then you’re recklessly opening your mouths to tell the world about your self-perceived triumphs, you leave yourself open to anyone who may have an issue with you. And we know there are plenty of people who do.’

If I was looking for someone to blame, I’d be reading the above paragraph very carefully, particularly those words contained in the first set of brackets.

Anyhow, enough of those on the long list and onto the genuine contenders:

Sussex croppies Andy Thomas and Barry Reynolds have been on the scene since the 1990s. Andy made a name for himself as an author and speaker, whilst Barry held various posts for the long defunct Centre for Crop Circle Studies.

Along the way, both men collated a significant amount of material that is now finding its way to the surface through their newly launched Crop Circle Research Archive. Items include reports, more than 8,000 photos and numerous publications that we hadn’t even heard of before. Things are still taking shape, but do take the time to head over and have a look. It’s very rare to find croppies doing something with regard to the history of the phenomenon in such a quiet manner.

Here at The Croppie we like Fwank Smithland in a perverse kind of way. Always loftier than thou, he attempts to make out he’s stood on the moral high ground with regard to everything crop circle related. You know exactly what he’s going to mention as soon as you call him out: childishness, toxicity and playgrounds (go to the number one contender for a fine example). Anything to deflect from an obvious truth: Smithland stands on an exceptionally long pair of stilts which are firmly embedded at the bottom of a sewer. He’s the one promoting and working alongside a team of hoaxers who openly advertise what they’ve made and sometimes post plans online before they get to the field.

He’d be best advised to keep quiet as he keeps messing up. It was funny when Fwank tried to talk himself out of the discussion after a very bad hoax was trashed at Sixpenny Handley in 2020. We laughed as Fwank went into hiding after Dorset Police were tagged in a Facebook post about the 2024 Badbury Rings hoax. Why would he do that? Something to hide? Yet, apparently, he’s the voice of reason.

A pseudo-circle at Sixpenny Handley, created by Dene Hine and Dan Davies. Apparently ruined by ??? The additions are an improvement to this pictorial representation of a waste disposal unit. Photograph by Nick Bull

And he hates The Croppie. We don’t even know what we did to upset Fwank in the first place, we just remember him appearing from nowhere to have a pop at us on behalf of his buds in Team Ten Watt. Then he became one of their full members and finally earned his place in the field on a commission job at Broad Hinton. For that he became Top of the Croppies 2023 and proceeded to share it with the world via a Facebook implosion. In the process he did nothing but draw attention to himself and show just how upset he was.

In a hoaxing team of the lowest lux rating, Smithland is the one who seems to give off a few more lumens than his peers. However, once you witness Fwank’s capacity for getting it badly wrong, you realise he’s no brighter.

You know this circle has been there for a month, right, Fwank? And that the farmer has been allowing paying visitors to access it? Of course you do. You’re just being disingenuous.

Or, more appropriately, Fwank is as much in the dark as his Ten Watt playmates. You see, the 2025 crop circle season featured a few contributions with origins that seemed to stump these geniuses. One of these was a ringed circle featuring a knot-style motif that popped up at Sutton Veny near Warminster. For whatever reason, Fwanky wrongly seemed to think the makers came from out of county, suspecting those responsible included someone he really did not like. Smithland commented on an overhead of the formation:

‘In this case, whoever put the outer construction circle down made a right pigs ear of it, and you can see the board work behind it was a bit rough as a result.’

Silly Fwank may have had a point if he was talking about an image of the circle taken shortly after its discovery. Instead, the disingenuous mushroom was referring to an overhead captured almost a month after the circle had been made and subsequently visited by a stream of tourists. Of course it was going to look rough, even more so that the field had been affected by high winds and rain.

We’re not sure exactly who you thought you were kidding, Frankie, but you’re wrong on so many levels. If you want to discredit other circle makers, at least go after the ones you have a problem with and not innocent third parties. 

​The 2025 crop circle season sits at the bottom of the swamp and with it has come the realisation amongst certain ‘researchers’ that staying relevant and making a few quid necessitates clinging to any old tat, regardless that its origins have been splashed by the makers all over social media. There’s no need to mention names. We all know who we’re talking about.

This is not a crop circle. It is a hoax and a rumour.

Meanwhile, those who do go into the fields under the cover of silence and anonymity can only look on and question why they’re still bothering given that their work is now treated as equal to crude hoaxes. It’s a situation that tells us pretty much everything that is wrong in the fields at this present time.

Beyond this website, there has been just one other outlet prepared to call the nonsense for what it is: The Crop Circle Connector. Kudos to Mark Fussell, Julian Gibsone and Nick Bull for consigning every hoaxed pseudo-circle produced by Dene Hine, Deiniol Davies and their Team Ten Watt brethren to the purgatorial limbo of the crop circle ‘rumours’ page.

Much arse-ache followed, with jumbo Ten Watt spokesperson Frank Smithland reduced to tears whilst delivering his annual sermon on Mount Facebook:

‘The problem with the whole situation is that it has become so toxic that the CCConnector refuses to acknowledge any work that isn’t put through them, preferring to call them ‘hoaxes’ and ‘rumours’. The pettiness and playground mentality is rife throughout their whole modus operandi.’

No, Fwank. The Connector would happily acknowledge crop circles that were reported to them without calling them out as rumours of hoaxes. The issue is that your team’s pseudo-circles are just that: transparent, poorly made, amateurish messes that you are all too happy to shout about. They’re not crop circles. Besides, why do you even care if the Crop Circle Connector doesn’t feature your hoaxes? What is it about them and their actions that cut you all so deep? Whatever it is, good work Connector team and keep it up into 2026.

We bet you are now wondering just who is Top of the Croppies 2025. Unfortunately, you’ll just have to wait until the 14th of January to learn the identity of our winner, someone who is a true shining light among the nebulae. A scurrilous pixie in a season connected to elves. Someone who really should know better. 

Or, maybe, it’s someone else entirely…