The UK crop circle season appears to have come to an end, but seemingly lacking the last-minute stunners or shocks the croppie world has come to expect…


With the very dry summer of 2003, the combines were out early and the majority of fields in the UK have now been harvested, leaving very little canvas left for any last-minute masterpieces from the circle-making sources.

The majority opinion seems to be that the season produced some interesting and often beautiful designs, but lacked the types which make everyone collectively draw breath and dash into their cars immediately, such as the 2001 Milk Hill event or the 2002 Stonehenge ‘ribbons’.

Even the style of more controversial designs like 2001’s ‘face and code’ and last year’s ‘alien and disk’ appear to have been passed over this year. Indeed, there was great expectation that another ‘message’-type pattern would appear on their anniversaries, and a number of croppies staked out the fields in the Crabwood and Chilbolton areas, but to no avail (perhaps they frightened the forces off?!).

But, some have argued, there is still time… Maybe something significant will yet occur in some happily neglected standing field. We shall see!

Overall, it would seem that UK numbers of formations were down this year, while the general overseas numbers were up on previous records. This can be partially explained by the fact that the UK can usually expect to have fields standing sometimes as late as mid-September, and the early harvest has stolen at least two, maybe three, weeks off the season. We wuz robbed!

(We will look at some of the themes and threads of this year’s formations in a later update.)