Each piece of data within the database is given a unique identifier which is used to cross-reference against other pieces of data within the database. Invariably, but not always, this is related to a crop circle. The identifier, known as the CCRA Reference, is ten characters and is formed as follows:

• 2 character Country code
• 2 character County, State or Province code
• 4 digit Year
• 2 digit Serial Number to prevent duplicates for that Country / County / Year

The CCRA Reference forms the first part of any file name within the database. Appended to this are:

• The Place of the formation
• The Nearest Town or Village
• The File Type
• The Copyright Holder
• A Sequence Number to prevent duplicates

For instance, the following file name

ENHA200004 Gander Down Tichborne – Shadow – BR

can be broken down as follows:

• EN – 2 character Country code for England
• HA – 2 character County, State or Province code for Hampshire
• 2000 – 4 digit Year
• 04 – 2 digit Serial Number to prevent duplicates for that Country / County / Year
• Gander Down – The Place of the formation
• Tichborme – The Nearest Town or Village
• Shadow (diagram) – The Type of File
• BR (Barry Reynolds) – The Copyright Holder
• n/a – A Sequence Number to prevent duplicates

This enables queries to be run over the database for simple as well as highly complex data extractions e.g.:

• All formations within a given County for a given Year
• All formations within a given Place e.g. Gander Down irrespective of date

The full list of available File Type is as follows:

• Advert – many formations have been man-made for advertisements
• Anomaly – photographs or reports of anomalies seen over or near crop circles
• Article – crop circle journals published lengthy articles on specific formations
• Calendar – crop circle calendars have been produced annually since the early 1990s
• Corres – in the days before the internet and email, written correspondance was used between researchers
• Geometry – the geometric layout of formations is often highly complex
• Featured – there is so much information relating to some extremely well-known formations that it has been pulled together into a single report
• Media – magazines and newspapers have run countless articles over the years
• Photo – all photographs have the back as well as the front scanned as there is often pertinent information on the reverse
• Podcast – some crop circles have their own podcast
• Postcard – these were very popular during the mid to late 1990s
• Private – some correspondance is private and will not be publicly released but remains within the physical archive
• Report – many first-hand, written reports have never previously been published
• Sample – during the mid 1990s crop samples were taken and sent for analysis
• Science – a considerable amount of scientific research was undertaken and the results are contained within the archive
• Shadow – black and white shadow diagrams are often the quickest way to identify a formation or compare them
• Survey – researchers spent thousands of hours meticulously measuring formations
• Video – the physical archive contains hundreds of hours of video evidence