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Without any prior knowledge of ballooning, Donaldson bartered his way into owning a hot air balloon and debuted as an aeronaut in 1871.

His advanced technical innovations with balloon reconnaissance prompted President Lincoln to make him “chief aeronaut” of the Union army’s balloon corps.

Now, Seattle Ballooning’s aeronauts will become regulars overhead in the region during the fall, when the weather is less reliable in Seattle, Cohen said.

In Matt Phelan’s up-tempo “The Sheep, the Rooster, and the Duck,” the answer is this: Three 18th-century French animal aeronauts also happen to be the most extraordinary secret agents in the world.

Reports of the mysterious aeronaut have cropped up on at least three occasions over the past year – but an LA pilot finally captured video evidence on Christmas Day.