When seen from above, the arid west coast of South Africa features some extraordinary markings. Clustered between the small towns of Koingnaas and Kotzesrus are vast patterns, some stretching for kilometres. These are not the designs of an ancient civilisation or extra-terrestrials, but instead are long strips of earth that were ploughed by local sheep farmers to grow wheat and barley. Bands of natural vegetation were left between the ploughed earth to help protect the topsoil from wind erosion during the dry summer months. As annual rainfall in the region has declined over the last half century, many of these fields are no longer in use, and the natural vegetation is returning, gradually obscuring these patterns from view.