What did they find inside?

• Cubic-foot box was found in a statue’s base earlier this year.
• Officials believe it was placed in 1829, when R.E. Lee was a prominent cadet at the academy.
• They had no idea what was in the capsule; high-powered X-rays were inconclusive.
• The box had been nearly 200 years in the base of a statue to Polish general Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who helped the colonies win their independence from Britain.

It was all very compelling in the buildup, Monday’s opening of a West Point time capsule dating to when Robert E. Lee was a West Point cadet. But, in the end, while there was mention of General Washington, the event resulted in general disappointment.

A crowd arrived at the auditorium excited, hoping to see if a lead box from 1829 — found in May in the base of a monument to Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciuszko — might be a window into West Point’s storied past.

Cadets had wondered on social media what might be inside: an American flag, boots, a parade-uniform memento, a diary, maps of West Point, a custom bayonet, class rings, even mess hall silverware.

History mystery:The story behind the recently discovered West Point time capsule

‘Better than Geraldo’

“Nobody has any idea what’s inside of it,” U.S. Military Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland said at the start of Monday’s ceremony, which was also seen by more than 5,000 viewers of the livestream broadcast. “You all are here and are going to see it with all of us. I guarantee you it’s going to be better than Geraldo.”

“Geraldo” was Geraldo Rivera, who had drawn 30 million viewers to watch him “open” gangster Al Capone’s secret Chicago vault on live TV in 1986, only to “reveal” dust and debris.

Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves, dean of the academic board, also invoked Rivera before the box was unsealed.

There were three options for the morning’s reveal, Reeves said. The first option was that it could be nothing, akin to Rivera’s event.

“I was told yesterday that if we had a sense of…