General Mills built the spy balloons America flew over the Soviet Union in 1956.
From 1946 the company’s aeronautical division built balloons. In January 1956, calling it weather research, the United States sent hundreds of them, 20 stories tall and carrying cameras, over China and the Soviet bloc. Film the Soviets recovered from them is said to have photographed the Moon’s far side aboard the Soviet probe Luna 3.
General Mills on Brandseum