By: Diane Sori and Craig Andresen / Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio

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By Craig Andresen – Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio

*The opinions and conclusions expressed within are ours alone.

 *Author’s Note: This article is solely about the man in the video and NOT about who did or did not start the Notre Dame fire.

“Paris is beheaded,” so said Pierre-Eric Trimovillas as he watched the spire come crashing down, and yet the white cross remained unscathed…a beacon of hope against the cathedral’s ruins…God’s hand perhaps.

And so it stood the test of time and bore witness to some of history’s most monumental moments. Joan of Arc was beatified there; French kings were crowned within its majestic hall; Napoleon declared himself emperor there in 1804; the French revolution did it little harm; and neither World War I nor World II would see to its demise. It was restored, renovated, and repaired over the centuries many times over as one would expect a now 850-year old building to be, and done so with little to no problems arising.

But that all changed last Monday when around 6:43 p.m. local French time fire alarms sounded at the Cathedral of Notre Dame…a testament to both French Gothic architecture and more importantly to the Holy Roman Catholic Church itself. The cathedral is a Paris landmark situated on an island within the city’s center, an island called the Île de la Cité, an island surrounded by the River Seine. Completed around 1260 A.D., the Cathedral of Notre Dame (the Cathedral of Our Lady) is a landmark from which all destination points in Paris emanate…“Point Zero” the Parisians call it.

And a structure as majestic as this cathedral…a structure honoring the years Roman Catholicism has been a French mainstay…deserves better treatment than she is getting now for the conspiracies concerning the fire are doing more harm to Christianity itself than even that which the Crusaders tried to undue. And while the media and the French government can do little to debunk the conspiracy nonsense…at least not right now…maybe RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS can.

But first the good news…as per France’s junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, the outer stone structure of Notre Dame itself has been both “saved and preserved” despite the spire and roof being consumed by flames and collapsing, and despite the massive interior damage to the main sanctuary hall.

So let’s start with what we know, as in the Cathedral of Notre Dame…now owned by the French State and not the Catholic Church as many assume…has been undergoing restorations for some time…age does take its toll on all things after all. And it’s a $6.8 million restoration with part of the work being clearly visible around the cathedral’s central 750 ton spire…ground zero from which many believe the fire emanated from. In fact, local Paris TV network BFM-TV was the first to report that the fire was “possibly linked” to the oak “covered in lead” spire’s renovation, and thus began within the wooden rafters surrounding it. But the fact is that no actual work was being done, renovations wise, at that time the fire broke out as the scaffolding was still in the process of being assembled…nor were there any workers on the roof itself or on the scaffolding in the hour leading up to the fire. And besides, no sources of electricity or any construction equipment that could start a fire were allowed on or even near the roof for fear of starting a fire due to the roof’s ancient wood composition.

But with no workers or construction equipment being anywhere near the fire’s supposed point of origin how exactly did the fire start? But before we get into that let’s go over want we do know. First, unbeknownst to many is that actually two fire alarms had gone off…the first being at 6:23 p.m…20 minutes before the second alarm when smoke and flames were actually seen. And while those worshiping inside the main sanctuary had been ushered out along with sightseers and most of the staff, a church official is reported to having gone up into the attic after the first alarm was sounded out of fear that the“lattice of ancient wooden beams” known as “the forest”*…actually a crisscrossed grid of timber trusses that add structural integrity to the cathedral and its roof…no evidence of fire or of a fire being eminent was found…evidence such as the attic being unusually hot or the wood beams being hot to the touch. And yet just a mere 23 minutes later the entire attic was ablaze along with much of the roof itself and the spire was engulfed in flames.

And of note here is the fact that no significant show of firefighters were stationed at the historic cathedral after the first alarm went off…just to be on the safe side if you will as the Cathedral of Notre Dame is a French historical treasure. And yet 500 firefighters assembled on scene after the second alarm was sounded as fire was now visibly noted. That bad call in judgment the French government and corresponding fire departments must surely answer for, for if there had been more firefighters on scene as soon as the first alarm was sounded, the damage done to “Our Lady” might not have been as extensive as it is now.

So how exactly did the refereed to as an “accedental” fire start? Did the fire start near the rafters surrounding the spire and spread outward from there as was first reported or somehow did the fire start within the attic itself working its way outward to the rafters and spire with the barrel roof acting as a funnel of sorts…sucking and drawing the flames to the small opening in the roof where the work was being done on the spire? Or could the fire have been linked to a computer glitch or to a malfunction in the temporary elevators used in the renovation work as some seem to suggest? But maybe it was just a simple electrical fire caused by a short circuit, the very theory that as we write this is now believed to be the most likely cause.

Theories abound, and while it will take time to find the definitive cause of the fire, maybe Jean-Michel Leniaud, the president of the scientific council at the National Heritage Institute, said it best when he stated that, “What happened was bound to happen. The lack of real upkeep and daily attention to such a major building is the cause of this catastrophe.” And why…because Notre Dame and many other historical buildings of antiquity are nowhere near up to current fire code, as are the more modern historical buildings.

So now before we take on the widely disseminated video that seems to be ground zero of all the conspiracy theories that are now making the rounds…theories as to the fire’s origin….lets first visit France’s recent past for a bit and see how that adds fuel to the conspiracy fire.

Fact: the Cathedral of Notre Dame is but the latest in a series of attacks on France’s Roman Catholic churches…attacks that for the most part went under reported or not reported on at all. Within the past four years literally hundreds of French churches have been vandalized many with fires started, in fact, this past February alone saw ten incidents of vandalism and desecration occurring. On February 5th an alter cloth was set on fire with crosses and statues being torn down and disfigured at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur. And then just a day later on February 6th vandals at a Catholic church in Nimes entered the sanctuary, throwing the consecrated hosts on the ground and drew a cross on the wall in human excrement. And on February 9th acts of vandalism was reported at the Church of Notre-Dame de Dijon in Côte-d’Or.

Then just a few weeks ago in late March, the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houilles, in north-central France, saw a statue of the Virgin Mary being smashed almost to the point of being beheaded while the altar cross was heavily damaged after having been thrown on the ground and obviously stomped on.

And not to be forgotten is that during this year’s Lent, a major incident occurred when Paris’ second most famous church, Saint-Sulpice church…a church built in the 17th century upon foundations dating back to the Middle Ages…suddenly caught fire after mid-day mass while four parishioners were still inside. And while no one was hurt and with firefighters able to bring the blaze under control fairly quickly, there remained some serious damage done to the church’s stained glass windows and to a stairway leading up to the second floor.

And it was that particular fire that some see Saint-Sulpice as being a forerunner…a test if you will… leading up to the Holy Week destruction at Notre Dame. And why…because the a fore mentioned past coupled with the here-and now-video has led many people to believe what we feel is the wrong truth.

Now as for the original video in question, and before we get into the critical details, there are a few things we need to make clear regarding said video. First, the video was shot near dusk so it was made in lower light conditions. Second, there is a blue haze to it resulting from the fire’s smoke. Third, the video, recorded by a bystander, was shot from a distance thus limiting the extent of clarity, sharpness, and detail that would normally be available. And lastly, the video was most likely taken with a cell phone which means it was done without the use of any high definition professional piece of equipment.

Due to those just stated factors along with the fact that there are some things we cannot discern from the video, there are most certainly some things that we can definitively tell you regarding this video.

And so we began the process of doing a “forensic” autopsy of not just the original video but a newly found close-up video that came to our attention. First, we developed a list of possibilities for who that person walking along the exterior balcony of the right bell tower could be, so let’s take those possibilities one at a time.

Could it be a fire fighter? We can see, and so too can you see, that the person is wearing what appears to be light colored clothing, and the sleeves appear to be dark…most likely black, The person’s head has a light, possibly white covering, and the lower part of the person’s face appears to have either a dark beard, or some sort of dark covering that extends down to about the mid-chest.

After poring through literally hundreds upon hundreds of photos of firefighters from both Paris specifically and from France in general, we found absolutely no firefighters whose gear even remotely came close to what is seen as the garb on the person in this video. Also, firefighters are geared up, and any firefighter on or near a burning structure would be geared up, and they have a certain gate when they walk. Their movements always appear bulky and somewhat restricted. As can plainly be seen in the video, even with the video’s limitations, the person walking across that balcony has an unencumbered gate, and moves both swiftly and fluidly across the balcony and through the door.

Also bearing note…standard practice in any emergency situation for any firefighter when on or in a burning structure, is that they are never alone. The person in the video is very much alone. Given the garb, the gate, and the solitary presence of the person in the video we have been able to rule out it being a fire fighter.

Is it a Notre Dame priest? We pored through literally hundreds upon hundreds of images of Notre Dame priests, as well as Catholic priests from France and around the world, and found absolutely no Catholic vestments worn by priests anywhere which even remotely match what the person in the video is wearing. Also, at the time this video was made the Cathedral had been completely evacuated, thus we have ruled out the notion that the person in the video is a priest.

Could it be a police officer? Once again, hundreds upon hundreds of Parisian and French police photos reveal no match or even a close match to what the person in the video was wearing, and police would not be inside any part of that structure while the fire was blazing.

Could this have been anyone trying to remove artifacts? Again, the building had been evacuated hours before this video was taken, and we know this because in the raw video we can see water being poured into the burning part of the structure behind the bell tower. We know that it took two hours from the time the fire was initially reported before water began to flow through the fire hoses, and we know that the building was empty save for the few who were getting artifacts out of the main part of the structure.

Further negating the notion that this could have been someone retrieving artifacts is the fact that the person in the video is on an upper balcony of the right bell tower, and there were never any artifacts other than the bells themselves, weighing several tons each, in the bell towers.

For the next phase of our analysis of both videos, we asked ourselves…what good reason would someone have to be on that bell tower balcony during the fire. And there were good reasons as in to look for “hot spots”… examine the bell tower structure…assess the support system for the bells themselves, to name but a few.

However, there also were bad reasons to be in that place at that time, and we couldn’t discount either of those two possibilities.

At this point, everything seemed to be pointing toward nefarious actions, and as we said before, with all the churches in France over the past four years that have been vandalized or destroyed by today’s most infamous of bad actors, we were almost ready to make our determination, especially since we like so many others at first glance questioned the clothing worn by the man in the video.

So let’s talk about that clothing for a bit and what it seemed to be, as in the common garb worn by muslim men, a garb called a “thobe” replete with long sleeves, and such a black garment could clearly be seen in the video close-up. Also, commonly worn by muslim men is an outer garment over said “thobe,” a sleeveless vest or shawl if you will…again seemingly clearly visible in the video. And then there’s the white head covering, what appears to be either a “taqiyah” hat or a “kufi” skull cap along with a shadow indicating a backpack or pouch of some sort strapped onto the man’s back. And dare we forget the shadow running from his face to mid-chest…a beard perhaps or even a coward’s mask both the calling card of a certain group of folks that have no love for we whom they call “infidels.”

But before we would even consider jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon there was one possibility that had to be investigated…a possibility most refused to even consider, as in could the man in the video have been a construction worker or an engineer of some sort?

Remember, as we previously stated there were no construction workers reported to have been working on the structure when the fire broke out, and besides there was no construction or renovation taking place in the bell towers themselves. Philippe Villeneuve, the architect-in-chief of the “Monuments Historiques,” the administration that maintains and repairs monuments in France, and the man in charge of the Notre Dame project, made it quite clear that, “Work had not started yet, scaffoldings were still being built.”

Furthermore, Julien Le Bras, the head of the company that was building the actual scaffolding (Europe Echafaudage) said, “All I can say for the time being is that at the moment of the fire, absolutely none of the employees of my company was present on site.”

And that’s a key thing…“at the moment of the fire…” none of his employees was present…but the video that kick-started the conspiracy was shot well into the fire. Did anyone from a construction company go up onto that bell tower walkway to check on the bell towers or on the supports that held the multi-ton bells, and if so would that person’s garb be a match for what we can see in the hazy video?

After a lot of research, we discovered that the answer to that question is…yes.

The next day, as construction workers (and engineers) began to ascended the bell tower to assess the damage to the structure and to the bell supports themselves, a lone photograph caught our eye. The image, crisp and clear in the light of a new day, clearly showed several men making the necessary assessments, and a couple of them were wearing orange vests. Remember, while the original video is very hazy and was taken both in lower light conditions as well as from a greater distance presumably on a cell phone, certain things are what they are.

First, let’s look more closely at the man in the orange vest at the bottom right of the image. Orange vest, white hat, black shirt. It seems like two out of the three criteria for the garb worn by the man in the video.

Now the man in the video is surely facing to the right, while the construction worker in the orange vest is facing more to the left, so we flipped the image. Notice now the very similar shape of the hat and the very similar shape and size of what many saw in the video as being either a black beard or black cloth covering the face. But the orange vest on the construction worker is really what sticks out and it should because it’s a safety vest…but…that video is both low in contrast, and low in color saturation due to both the distance and the smoke. So our next step in the investigation was to remove a good deal of the contrast and remove nearly all the color saturation from the construction worker’s image, and all of a sudden that orange vest turned very light indeed.

Resizing the video still and placing it next to the flipped and color altered construction worker image revealed that both men were the same height, same width, same build and wearing what is absolutely the same garb…thus making both men one and the same person.

But even now yet another video is making the rounds helping to fan the flames of conspiracy. That video, from a webcam overlooking Notre Dame, shows someone walking near the spire and a flash. The conspiracy is that whoever that person was lit a device that started the fire. Given what we have been able to discern regarding the original video, and given that in the closer version of the “flash” video, the flash is square and there is no fire at the time that person is on camera. Our belief is that the person in the “flash” video is part of the renovation team taking photographs to be used as reference during the renovation project and is using professional equipment which would account for the square nature of the flash itself.

So the bottom line is this, after having extensively examined all the videos in question, after having sorted through all the possibilities one by one, including putting what happened at Notre Dame into the proper context of similar occurrences happening in France within the past week, the past few months, and over the past four years, while discerning every bit we could regarding the person seen in that hazy, fuzzy video, we have arrived at the most probable conclusion, and we did so no matter that all French officials rushed to judgment that the fire at Notre Dame was an accident.

And it was their rush to judgment that led many people to rush to a very different conclusion…a conclusion based upon a video combined with a history of church arson in France…a conclusion reached in error that it was a muslim “supposedly” seen on the balcony who did it.

The official line remains that the fire at Notre Dame was a terrible accident, and while a thorough investigation into the exact cause will take a good deal of time, and we may well never know the exact cause, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS, after an exhaustive investigation, can say with confidence that the man in the hazy video had nothing whatsoever to do with the fire…propaganda be damned.

And that is at least one conspiracy theory we hope is finally debunked.
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*Each beam of the cathedral attic’s wooden frame was made from 1300 individual trees thus giving it the nickname “the forest.”

Copyright © 2019 Diane Sori and Craig Andresen / Right Side Patriots / Investigative Reports / All rights reserved.