Help with Mindless Minion

[OldTrees1]

I want to have an Incorporeal, Mindless, non living Minion however I am having trouble finding out how to satisfy all four conditions and have the minion still be useful (The campaign has not started yet. We are going to be at 13th level).

My plan is to have myself hidden in a bag of holding on the minion and use transdimensional telepathy to give it orders. Thus it seems like the minion is the character despite it being mindless.

My DM is ok with almost any level of cheese because he trusts us to not break the campaign. I want to find a way in the rules since that makes it easier for me to determine how to self-limit the power.

Edit: Ideally the minion would be useful at scouting. (Not skilled because mindless)

[Coidzor]

Everything but the Incorporeal and scouting can be solved with the Haunt Shift (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19862018/Expanding_on_Haunt_Shift) trick. And if you have the right object for the job, it can suit itself to some level of innocuous surveillance. Though IIRC the incorporeal part can be taken care of using 13+ levels of wizard casting.

[OldTrees1]

Everything but the Incorporeal and scouting can be solved with the Haunt Shift (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19862018/Expanding_on_Haunt_Shift) trick. And if you have the right object for the job, it can suit itself to some level of innocuous surveillance. Though IIRC the incorporeal part can be taken care of using 13+ levels of wizard casting.

So by having a Zombie (placeholder mindless undead) into a statue I can give it an acceptable level of resilience and have the form of an animated object (tiny to huge size) with an equal or less CR.

All the spells I could find that grant incorporeal are Range:Personal. Is there a way to change the range from personal? (say to touch?)

Would a mindless creature benefit from an item like Cloak of Elvenkind (+5 to hide)?