在象腳形成八個月後被發現時，其周邊的放射性高達約8,000–10,000倫琴[9]，或每小時80–100戈雷[2]，且能夠在五分鐘內發出造成50隻試驗動物全數死亡的致死量輻射（4.5戈雷）[2][10]。從那時起直到1996年，它的輻射強度已經下降到足以讓新安全圍堵體計劃（英語：Chernobyl New Safe Confinement）的副主任阿圖爾·科爾涅耶夫（Artur Korneyev）入內調查的程度[a]，他還用自動照相機拍照，由於環境昏暗的關係，還用了閃光燈照亮整個房間[11]。
Higginbotham, Adam. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster. Random House. 2019: 340. ISBN 9781473540828. The substance proved too hard for a drill mounted on a motorized trolley, ... Finally, a police marksman arrived and shot a fragment of the surface away with a rifle. The sample revealed that the Elephant's Foot was a solidified mass of silicon dioxide, titanium, zirconium, magnesium, and uranium ...
United States Foreign Broadcast Information Service (編). Daily Report: Soviet Union. No. 235–239. The Service: 133. 1989. The radiation level near it was approximately 8,000 roentgens per hour in 1986. Even five minutes spent near the 「foot」 would have killed a man ... the substance failed to yield to a drill mounted on a special remote-controlled truck ... A skilled marksman ... fired armor-piercing bullets into it ... Analysis of the fragments obtained in this way showed that they consisted of 70–90% silicon dioxide (fused sand), 2–10% fuel particles, and, in addition, contained graphite (hence the black color), metal alloys, and so on ...
Jaromir Kolejka (編). Role of GIS in Lifting the Cloud Off Chernobyl. NATO Science: Earth and environmental sciences 10 illustrated. Springer Science & Business Media. 2002: 72. ISBN 9781402007682.
