Tourist’s lucky guess cracks safe that had been locked for 40 years

On a visit to a museum, Stephen Mills had a one-in-216,000 lucky break when he was shown a safe that had eluded people for decades.

A tourist visiting a small museum in Canada stunned onlookers recently when he managed to crack a safe that no one had been able to unlock for decades.

Stephen Mills was on a tour of the Vermilion Heritage Museum in Alberta with his family when he was shown the 900kg safe, which is part of the museum’s collection, the Vermilion Standard and Fox News report.

The safe was donated to the museum in the mid-1980s and had previously been used by the town’s Brunswick hotel, which closed in the 1970s, according to Canada’s CBC.

Stephen Mills managed to crack a safe that hadn't been opened in 40 years on a visit to a museum in Canada. Picture: CNN

However, the safe had not been opened since the 1970s and no one knew the code. Multiple attempts to crack the code over the years had been unsuccessful, according to the Standard.

Cue Stephen Mills, who jokingly put his ear to the lock and then turned the knob a few times. To everyone’s amazement, the door opened.

The BBC reports that the dial numbers on the lock run from zero to 60, so Mr Mills used the combination 20-40-60.

“Typical combination lock, three times clockwise — 20 — two times counterclockwise — 40 — once clockwise — 60, tried the handle and it went,” he told the BBC.

Sadly, there was no hidden treasure inside the safe. Instead, Mr Mills found some papers from 1977 and 1978. One of the papers was a pay sheet and the other was part of a restaurant order pad. On the pad were receipts for a $CA1.50 ($AU1.60) mushroom burger and a $CA1 ($AU1.05) packet of cigarettes.

He told CNN of his remarkable stroke of luck. Picture: CNN

“Yes, our safe was opened. How exciting,” confirmed the museum, in a Facebook post, which included the front page of the Vermilion Standard.

The museum is enjoying its time in the spotlight thanks to Mr Mills’ safe-cracking skills. “Our little museum is getting some national attention this is great,” the museum added, in a subsequent Facebook post.

On his Facebook page, Mr Mills was getting plenty of praise for solving the mystery of the museum’s safe. “What luck? Well done young man,” wrote one commenter. “You’ll be the next ‘oceans 14’. Awesome,” quipped another.

The safe is believed to have been bought in 1907, according to the BBC.

This tourist visited a museum and cracked the code to a safe that had been unopened for decades — on his first try https://t.co/DXjgJq9VHb pic.twitter.com/ZAjXuwlXOU

— CNN (@CNN) June 7, 2019

Citing University of Toronto Statistics Professor Jeffrey Rosenthal, author of Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything, the BBC reported the chance of correctly guessing the combination was 1 in 216,000 (assuming that the safe numbers run from 1 to 60).

However, given that the safe used a combination lock, this could increase the chance of success to 1 in 8000.

Canada continues to reveal its rich history. Last year, for example, a mysterious underground vault, was discovered on the grounds of the Nova Scotia Legislature in Canada.

Last year, archaeologists also confirmed that a rare copper arrowhead discovered on a remote Canadian mountain was almost 900 years old.

The arrowhead, which was at the tip of a perfectly preserved antler arrow, was found sticking out of an ice patch in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 2016.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission