Lucy Pringle has delivered a hilariously brutal smackdown on hoaxer Dene Hine in her 2025 calendar. Accompanying photos of Hine’s rotating poodle legs at Stonehenge Visitors Centre in 2024, is a quote from Pablo Picasso:

‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.’

Clearly, it is a problem that remains unsolved on the back streets of Somerset.

Still with Dene Hine, he has been back on the Facebook group he dramatically [never] ‘left’ in a flounce for his ‘mental health’, to rage about croppie Monique Klinkenbergh and their role in that 2019 Chinese television reality show [click here to learn more]. 

So, just how did Klinkenbergh ‘stitch up’ Hine on that show? The answer is simple: she didn’t.

Rather, Hine eagerly jumped at the opportunity to participate in a production that other circle makers had previously declined. So dubious were the show’s makers that they requested Hine take to the fields with his then buddy Matthew Williams to make a demonstration crop circle. The result was the shocking ‘goldfish’ formation that still makes us cringe. 

You stitched yourself up by admitting responsibility to this one, Dene.

Doubtlessly realising they had to be happy with what they had to be happy with, the television crew then commissioned Hine and Williams to make a circle for Klinkenbergh on land owned by Tim Carson. Not that things went smoothly. Whether previously known to the production team or otherwise (we suspect the former), Mr Carson wasn’t happy for Williams to set foot on his property. Rather than look for an alternative site, Hine simply sold Williams down the river and brought in replacement team members Rob Martins and Andrew Pyrka. The end result was a scrappy circle, albeit partly due to Williams storming the field with fireworks in the early hours.

Somehow, this is all Klinkenbergh’s fault. You see, she forced those other circle makers to cast doubt on the worth of the show. She forced Hine into taking part like an excited, yappy puppy stood on its back legs. She forced Hine into making that awful mess as an audition. She forced Hine into a polite kiss that he initiated. She forced Hine into selling out Williams. She forced him into making that second circle for the show. She forced him into lapping up the plaudits when the show was released. She forced other croppies to laugh at Hine and consider him as someone who would sell out friends to keep himself in the spotlight. She did it all and poor Dene Hine was just an innocent victim in all of this. No, we don’t believe this either.

Dene Hine, the only person who stitched you up was someone called Dene Hine who looks just like you. In your eagerness to appear before the cameras in your incessant quest for public recognition, you allowed yourself to become a pawn in a bigger game: entertainment television. The show was never about you and your crop circles. It was about producing a feature that contained some mild tension and drama. Did you do your research into the show’s producers, its staff and their reputation? Don’t worry, we don’t expect an answer.

Always righteous land artist and skeptic Francesco Grassi has taken to Facebook to question whether circle makers should still be taking to the fields, and whether those from the past now feel regret.

We won’t reproduce the whole drone but we will provide an extract:

Given that Grassi is addressing circle makers and talking nonsense whilst he’s as it, we thought it only fair that The Croppie invites a circle maker to address his points:

So, how do you feel as circle maker[s], being a part of the creation of all the gurus? Initial gurus like Terence Meaden, Pat Delgado, Colin Andrews, Dr. Levengood, Nancy Talbot, Eltjo Haselhof, Red Collie, etc. and then the middle and modern gurus of all kinds.

It’s staggering to think that Francesco really believes crop circle makers have come to the field not understanding what role they would fill in driving a myth machine. I’m not sure if he’s speaking as a revisionist, from naivety or a position of misunderstanding. I doubt it is the latter.

I’m sure most of us, maybe even all of us, knew and still know that crop circles operate on at least two distinct levels as an art form. There are the circles themselves with aesthetics that one may or may not like. The image, if you like. Then there is the power element in which crop circles play into audience members’ personal belief systems, whereby they may see something in the circle which they believe holds personal significance. Doug Bower and David Chorley knew this as far back as the 1980s when their work drew in ufologists. It’s what they were intending to achieve, although they also had to contend with Terence Meaden’s unwanted vortex hypotheses. Both drove Doug and Dave to evolve the crop circles’ appearance and provide the cerealogists with what they did and, in the case of Meaden, did not want. That ability to meet and confound the ability of the audience is something that has repeatedly inspired people to enter fields and make crop circles. If you look back at the second generation circle making group UBI, their work in the early 1990s was initially conceived as a direct reply to the supposedly genuine, paranormal crop circle makers. They acted, knowing full well that their work would be seen by the public at large. How many of their pieces, accompanied by direct dates and locations, did they publicly put their name to? Very few. Circlemakers.org worked knowing full well that their circles influenced their audience. They remained silent. Why has nobody jumped out of the shadows to publicly claim responsibility for the defining Chilbolton, Stonehenge, Milk Hill and Crabwood circles between the mid-90s and early 00s? The makers understand that the intrinsic power of their artwork depends upon their complete silence.

So, when it comes to how I feel about my role in the creation of gurus, I’m content that someone sees my work as worthy of their time and effort. I will not lose any sleep if someone chooses to interpret the crop circles I’ve made as evidence for any particular theory. My opinion isn’t important once I’ve left the field in the early hours of the morning. I become just another spectator. Circle makers provide the raw product and it is for the public to interpret it as they wish. If people aren’t chasing after my crop circles they will be chasing after imaginary drones over air bases. Everyone interprets what they believe to be mysteries in their own manner.

I will add one more thing. Francesco is hardly innocent in the larger picture. He has openly admitted to working with British circle makers in the past under cover of anonymity. Back then there seemed to be no issue. I think he described the opportunity as a privilege, yet now something has changed? He has played his own part. And he speaks from CCUK, a Facebook group administered by a hoaxer who is seeking to rehabilitate himself as some kind of guru having apparently been guided in the field by paranormal forces. I recently read this individual was apparently tapping into some greater consciousness involving a dead goat. Yet all of this is somehow deemed acceptable.

The mindset of all of them is part of what we as circlemakers created. Does this bother us?

It bothers me far more that Francesco addresses me as his peer, but I do not accept him to be a circle maker. My work is completed under cover of darkness and I never publicly associate myself with any of the circles I had made or helped with. His modus operandi is to produce something that looks like a crop circle but possesses his ownership. He may not appreciate this, but even these pieces of work are interpreted by certain true believers to be the real thing. Any stake to authorship that he has made is dismissed as part of a conspiracy theory. He is just adding to the same issue he is whining about. He’s as much of the so-called problem as anyone else.

Are we really aware now that it would develop into all of this and grow like a virus in some minds to the point that some of them would believe into fake/mental conspiracies and start their investigation thinking to be Leonardo DiCaprio on Shutter Island?

Are we really aware now that it would develop into all of this and grow like a mind virus to the point that all the followers of this phenomenon are convinced that aliens are making these shapes to communicate to us?

I (and I think few others) feel it’s a mighty responsibility.

Yes we are all aware. We were all aware that Terence Meaden, Pat Delgado and their colleagues were all chasing their tails. Welcome to the party and you’re up to your neck in it.