Experimental studies of an ultrasonic beam incident onto a liquid‐solid interface have been reported [J. A. Smith, R. L. Smith, and M. A. Breazeale, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 50, 105 (1971)]. The reflected beam was found to exhibit an energy redistribution (rather than a simple lateral displacement as predicted by Schoch and Brekhovskikh). In an attempt to find a theoretical model to describe this experimental observation, an expression for the “internal structure” of the reflected beam as given by Brekhovskikh was modified. By using a Gaussian distribution for the incident beam and including the second derivative of the phase shift in the reflection coefficient, the intensity of the reflected beam is expressed in terms of the distance along the interface. The expression for the intensity distribution of the reflected beam is given in terms of complex error functions of finite argument (suggested by Larry Flax of NRL). The calculated intensity distribution agrees reasonably well with the experimental data for four samples. [Research supported in part by the U. S. Office of Naval Research.]