About Portland: Forget Al Capone's Vault - It's the Mystery of Zuckerman Safe

In the end, there was nothing in it but dreams.

Peter Zuckerman and his sister Ellen were kids when their parents were having their house remodeled.

The workers - and the family - were shocked when, during the renovation, a locked safe was discovered under the floor boards.

Peter and Ellen were ecstatic.

Kids love few things more than a good mystery and a safe in their own house promised the possibility of gold, jewels... who knew what.

The kids begged their mom.

She apparently considered it but, according to Peter, was dissuaded by Peter's uncle Ken from doing it. They didn't want to delay the renovation of the house by even one day, it would have been too much of a hassle.

The workers covered the safe back up with flooring and there it sat - undisturbed.

In Ken Zuckerman's defense, when facetiously questioned by Peter in a video posted to Facebook, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right not incriminate himself.

Fast forward 25 years.

A couple of weeks ago, Peter's mom's house had a flooding issue. Workers were called. The bathroom where the safe had sat... would suddenly have to be disturbed.

Peter and Ellen - who would both be in town for a family wedding - convinced their mom to let them try to get the safe open.

She agreed.

Their first step was the safe's manufacturer - Major Safe.

They had since been bought by a bigger company but they new company had the old records.

The new company said that if Peter could get the serial number, they would be able to give him the combination.

He got the serial number.

The company provided the combination.

And.... no luck. The mechanism wasn't working.

Step two - find a good locksmith.

The company made a suggestion. Peter and Ellen checked them out on Yelp.

And on Saturday morning, Mick, an Australian from Torrance Lock and Key in Portland showed up.

And Peter and Ellen started streaming it on Facebook.

And some people tuned in.

And then some more.

And more.

And at some point, there were scores and scores... the number of people watching at once shot past 150.

And Mick worked.

And worked.

What had originally been thought be maybe a 60-minute job kept getting longer.

And longer.

The jokes started.

"Hoffa remains," said one person.

"Geraldo Rivera." said someone else.

The viewers kept coming.

One person said they were on vacation in Vietnam but couldn't stop watching.

Another person was watching while coaching little league.

People started posting photos of the lifestream playing on their laptops.

One person hooked the lifestream up to play on his flat-screen television with surround sound (the drilling was apparently very loud).

There were questions.

"What's in the locksmith's toolkit?" someone asked.

It proved to be a good question because the longer it took, the more drill bits that Mick went through.

At one point it looked as if he had gone through more than 40 drill bits.

Several people commented on how much more difficult cracking a safe is in real life compared to how easy the movies make it look.

There were requests for music.

After three hours, someone requested Men at Work. They were promptly played, starting what seemed like an 80s marathon.

After about fours, Mick had made it through two of the three bolts.

People were cheering Mick on.

"Attaboy, Mick!" someone wrote after the second bolt.

Unfortunately, the Zuckermans had a wedding to go.

People were not happy (not really; fun was had by all).

People asked if they could leave Mick working and keep the stream going. One person suggested opening it after the wedding, stuffing money inside, and then opening it in the morning.

The drama did continue on Sunday.

As Mick got closer to opening the safe, there were as many as 13,000 people viewing live.

Peter said he knew there probably would't be anything in it when they finally opened it.

He said they did some research on the previous owners and found their names were Bernstein and they seemed to have been involved in gun play at some point.

"I know it's going to be empty, but I'm still hoping for jewels," he said.

In the end, the safe was empty.

But to make sure the home's next owners aren't disappointed, they turned it into a time capsule.

The next owners will find a copy of this article, an iPhone 5, a charger, some M&Ms, some freeze dried cheddar cheese, and more.