Hale suffered from neurological and psychological problems, including insomnia, frequent headaches, and depression. The often-repeated myth of schizophrenia,Hale, George Ellery (1868-1938) – from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography. Scienceworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-25. alleging he claimed to have regular visits from an elf who acted as his advisor, arose from a misunderstanding by one of his biographers.Hale's "Little Elf": The Mental Breakdowns of George Ellery Hale, Sheehan, W. & Osterbrock, D. E., Journal for the History of Astronomy, xxxi (2000), p.93; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2000JHA....31...93S He occasionally took time off to spend a few months at a sanatorium in Maine. These problems forced him to resign as director of Mount Wilson. He died at the Las Encinas Sanitarium in Pasadena in 1938.
