Elves

MULDER: 

Have you ever been to San Diego?

SCULLY: 

Yeah.

MULDER: 

Did you check out the Palomar observatory?

SCULLY: 

No.

MULDER: 

From 1948 until recently, it was the largest telescope in The World. 

The idea and design came from a brilliant and wealthy astronomer named George Ellery Hale. 

Actually, the idea was presented to Hale one night. 

While he was playing billiards, an elf climbed in his window and told him to get money from The Rockefeller Foundation for a telescope.

I quote The Enemy:

"Hale was a driven individual, who worked to found a number of significant astronomical observatories, including Yerkes Observatory, Mount Wilson Observatory, Palomar Observatory, and the Hale Solar Laboratory. At Mount Wilson, he hired and encouraged Harlow Shapley and Edwin Hubble toward some of the most significant discoveries of the time. He was a prolific organizer who helped create a number of astronomical institutions, societies and journals. Hale also played a central role in developing the California Institute of Technology into a leading research university. After retiring as director at Mount Wilson, he built the Hale Solar Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as his office and workshop, pursuing his interest in the sun.

Hale suffered from neurological and psychological problems, including insomnia, frequent headaches, and depression. The often-repeated myth of schizophrenia, alleging he claimed to have regular visits from an elf who acted as his advisor, arose from a misunderstanding by one of his biographers. 

He used to take time off to spend a few months at a sanatorium in Maine. These problems forced him to resign as director of Mount Wilson."

Honors and awards

1894 Janssen Medal from the Paris Academy of Sciences

1902 Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

1904 Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences

1904 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

1916 Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

1917 Prix Jules Janssen from the French Astronomical Society

1919 Elected an associate of Academie des Sciences, Institut de France

1920 Galileo Medal from the University of Florence

1921 Actonian Prize from Royal Institution of London

1926 Elliott Cresson Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia

1926 Arthur Noble Medal from the City of Pasadena

1927 Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia

1932 Sir Godfrey Copley Medal from the Royal Society of Great Britain

1935 Frederic Ives Medal from the Optical Society of America

Foreign Member of the Royal Society

Medal of Merit of the Order of Leopold from Belgium

Order of the Crown of Italy

Honorary Member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences