The case is solved thanks to you meddling kids and that darn dog! More specifically Andrew_99GTP, who I must apologize too for so quickly dismissing his idea (even if not done public, I still feel bad). My mirror has always been quite solid so I thought that there was no way that the nuts came from it.
However, while sitting in my car today I decided to go ahead and peal back the foam in front of the mirror mount nuts, and look what I found:
IMPOSTERS! It looks like I am not the 1st to have this door panel off after all.
Thanks to all who chimed in some ideas, its you who make forums like this one informative and so great.
Drew