An experimental study has been made of H and H + scattering from metal surfaces under 10 to 30 keV H +, H 2 + and h 3 + bombardment. Light emission from the point of ion beam impact on the surface includes Doppler broadened lines from excited backscattered neutral projectiles. Slow recoils suffer radiationless de-excitation at the surface so that only fast recoils survive to emit photons; the coefficient for radiationless de-excitation is determined by analysis of the line shape. Using the measured de-excitation coefficient, we have predicted the excited backscattered flux as a function of incident projectile energy, and this agrees well with experiment. In a separate experiment we have measured directly the angular distribution of H + scattered from a surface when an H + beam is incident at an angle of 70° to the surface normal.