  We report the discovery of twenty-five previously unknown galaxies in the
Zone of Avoidance. Our systematic search for extended extra-galactic sources in
the GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL mid-infrared surveys of the Galactic plane has revealed
two overdensities of these sources, located around l ~ 47 and 55 degrees and
|b| less than 1 degree in the Sagitta-Aquila region. These overdensities are
consistent with the local large-scale structure found at similar Galactic
longitude and extending from |b| ~ 4 to 40 degrees. We show that the infrared
spectral energy distribution of these sources is indeed consistent with those
of normal galaxies. Photometric estimates of their redshift indicate that the
majority of these galaxies are found in the redshift range z = 0.01 - 0.05,
with one source located at z = 0.07. Comparison with known sources in the local
Universe reveals that these galaxies are located at similar overdensities in
redshift space. These new galaxies are the first evidence of a bridge linking
the large-scale structure between both sides of the Galactic plane at very low
Galactic latitude and clearly demonstrate the feasibility of detecting galaxies
in the Zone of Avoidance using mid-to-far infrared surveys.
