Why did J Allen Hynek move to Scottsdale?

Background

In 1984, J Allen Hynek and his wife, moved from Chicago to Scottsdale, in the USA, to establish a new UFO research center. I have always been intrigued as to why he moved his research there? I decided to try and find out why, and the best source of information which I came across, comes from Jacques Vallee's 'Forbidden Science: Volume Three,' 2016. Documentica Research, LLC. I will quote extensively from Vallee's book.

Image courtesy of Amazon Books

Spring Hill. Saturday 10 November 1984.

'Allen told us his new center was now duly established in  Scottsdale with the backing of wealthy Englishman Jeffery Kaye, a pro-Israeli businessman who maintains homes in three countries...Allen seems to have discovered a world of business contacts and big projects. Jeffery Kaye doesn't really intend to fund the center however. He is only providing an initial framework and startup funds. His idea is to launch a series of publications and film projects whose proceeds would support the organization, starting with a movie about Allen's life. John Fuller has been contracted to write it..."We need a real effort," Allen says, "with real investigations and translation of foreign cases." He speaks of spending two million dollars a year on such a project, but Mr Kaye will not provide that kind of cash.'

Hyde Street. Sunday 18 November 1984.

'An associate of Jeffery Kaye named Dr Glazer called me last week on Allen's behalf. He confirmed they were staring a publishing company and wanted to raise money for a docudrama on Hynek's life. He wants o enlist my help, because "your name would help us attract funding." He pressured me to drop everything I was doing and fly to Phoenix to see the project. Allen tells me that Glazer is a psychologist who sells his house to him in connection with a divorce.'

Hyde Street. Sunday 13 January 1985.

'Allen called yesterday, urging me to visit him in Scottsdale, perhaps in mid-February after my trip to New York. He warned me that I would get a formal letter from Dr Glazer, as Jeffery Kaye's business manager. "Don't let the formalities scare you."'

Scottsdale. Sunday 17 February 1985.

'Our third topic of morning discussion was his move to Phoenix. Allen told me it all came from a meeting he had with Tina, who inturn put him in touch with Jeffery Kaye, an English millionaire she had known for several years. Tina and Brian, who are involved in gold mining, knew Mr Kaye as a potential investor... Jules Glazer joined us, a tall, serious fellow. I liked him more than I expected, after some guarded comments I'd heard from Mimi. A practical businessman, he attacks the questions that Allen had avoided: would I lend my name to their center? Would I write books, give conferences for them? Would I help in fund-raising?...Besides, I thought Allen had clearly indicated that the Center was solidly financed. What about the backing by Mr Kaye, the English millionaire? Had Allen moved to Arizona only to find himself having to beg for support again?

Once he was gone I asked about Mr Kaye whom I had yet to meet. I was beginning to form certain ideas about him, however Mr Kaye's fortune was inherited from his father, the founder of a supermarket chain. Glazer spent six years with Jeffery in Monaco, helping manage the business, he now advises him in US investment: real estate, stocks, and private companies.

"Glazer jumped on the idea of ufology as a money-making operation when he saw the Meier photographs from Switzerland," said Tina. I winced. Allen said nothing.

"I miss something," I told them. "Wasn't Mr Kaye going to finance the center so you could do real research?"

"He does - in a way. he gives a thousand dollars a month to the center."

'How long does this deal last?"

"Until March."

"What happens after March?"

"He didn't commit to anything."

Tina Broke in: "the idea is that Mr Kaye is providing us with start-up money and that we will use his contacts with wealthy families here; he likes to take a hand in the research. Especially since the day he happened to be in the office while a television crew was filming Allen, and he ended up on the screen," she added with a wink.

Paris. Rue de la Clef. Friday 21 June 1985

'Allen told me that his financial backer, Mr Kaye, had come to Paris on the occasion of the GEPAN meeting. he is staying at the expensive Prince de Galles hotel, where he is inviting us for lunch tomorrow. It appears he is a strong backer of Israel, having helped finance Menachem Begin, among others, so there is an unexpected political angle to all this. Allen himself now feels he may have rushed a bit too fast to set up his new Center in Arizona under pressure from the fair Tina.

She had met Jeffery Kaye in Las Vegas, inspired his interest in ufology and suggested inviting Allen to Scottsdale. Once she had his approval she went to see Allen and sold him on the concept: "A multimillionaire from Moncao begs you to join him in solving the UFO problem: he pledges his support...All this was true, but only temporarily. Allen jumped without nailing down the long-term details...The purchase of Glazer's house was a fair deal, even if Kaye did little more than arranging a few partied and offering the use of a duplex he owns in Phoenix to house the new center...'

Paris. Rue de la Clef. Sunday 23 June 1985.

'Jeffery Kaye, whom I was meeting for the first time, appeared typically British, but without the easy, classy style of English aristocrats. He gave us a business card that introduced him as the proprietor of a Monaco based travel agency. I found this curious since he was supposed to have made his fortune with shopping centers. I instinctively mistrusted him. He also passed around pictures of his boat, registered in tax-free Guernsey Island.

The lunch started on a funny note with Kaye requesting some rose wine from the sommelier of the Prince de Galles, who must be used to such gaffes: Jeffery did not want to have to chose between red and white. Claude Poher, a great connoisseur winced but said nothing. To his right was Allen, dishevelled and tired, wearing a remarkable tie adorned with portraits of young women, reproductions of Renoir's grisettes. "Allen you are the last person on Earth wearing ties like that!" remarked Jeffery.

Allen spent much of his time trying to explain to his backer why contactee and abduction stories should be taken with scepticism. Yet Kaye is ready to invest in Meier's stories in Switzerland. With great solemnity, he even pulled out of his pocket, a purple rectangle "anodized with aluminium" that he handed around the table, claiming that this Alien-inspired artefact had medical benefits. It is even helping his old mother, who can barely walk. Embarrassed by the scene, Allen looked like someone who would love to dive under the table and disappear.

Kaye did confess he was having trouble raising money in Arizona...When Jeffery turned to Poher and asked him what he thought of Roswell and saucer crashes, Claude answered that he did not believe a word of the stories...

The same evening I had dinner with Simonne Servais at the Invalides. As soon as I mentioned Jeffery Kaye, "isn't he tied up with Israel?" she asked...'

Paris. Monday 24 June 1985.

'We had lunch with the whole group at Les Bouchons in Les Halles, after which Jeffery Kaye went away, to everyone's relief. Allen didn't appreciate the fact that Kaye had invited himself to the morning session, even proclaiming insolently, "Well, I want to know who all these people are..."

Before he left, Jeffery took me aside to tell me that a woman contactee had received a message that "the Frenchman and the Englishman must meet." He concluded the future of this research rested on the two of us, since Allen would soon pass from the scene, which left me very sad. I have no intention to work with Jeffery.

Hyde Street. Sunday 17 November 1985.

'Allen told me that CUFOS, from Chicago, had sent a sternly worded letter to Tina and Brian, forbidding them fro using Hynek's name in connection with their work. This saddened Allen, who gave Tina credit for bringing him to the freedom of Arizona, although he no longer wants to be associated with Jeffery Kaye.'

Phoenix. Friday 2 May 1986.

'I rediscovered Tina and Brian last night, and the friendship between us. They had distanced themselves from Jeffery and the English community in Scottsdale, an enclave of utter snobbishness. Jeffery's wife Susan has arrived from London on the wings of a powerful personal psychic tornado that sweeps everything around her, including Jeffery: now she plans a conference in London. Alan never understood why Jeffery didn't simply sign a check, and Jeffery never understood why Allen didn't come up with an action plan to solve the UFO problem in a few years.'

Wednesday 2 July 1986.

'Tina is an interesting woman, a former Chicago deputy sheriff, who became in turn in the commodities research, in the search fro sunken treasures, in gold mines, and in psychic research. It is during a stay in Las Vegas that she became interested in UFOs, when she met a man named Ed Slade. He took her to a secret room in his basement where he kept a collection of weapons and some jewels and icons from Russia.

Slade old her that he was a "former agent" who could fly to Russia whenever he wanted and bring back anything he likes. He assured Tina that the saucers existed, that the US government had captured some craft and their occupants: one of them was at Nellis Air Force Base (5) A collector of old share certificates, Slade shared this passion with Jules Glazer, who already served as Jeffrey's financial manager. However, Kaye long refused to meet with Slade. When he finally agreed he was fascinated by the man's brilliant conversation and the fact that he did have access to Nellis; however Jeffery never obtained access to the project that Slade had described to Tina.

Tina is intrigued by the fact that Slade doesn't seem to have a stable job; he would go to a table at a Las Vegas casino and quickly win a thousand dollars which he said was his way of drawing down a slary when he needed money. Slade has led Tina to believe he was a contacteee, showing her a scar on his neck to "prove" it. He also showed her supposedly classified documents about the government's' UFO secrets. Tina also mentioned to me that Glazer had written a dissertation on necrophilia.

I have understood certain things about Jeffery Kaye during this trip. I now believe he was sincere in his misguided efforts to help Allen. Jeffery simply doesn;t know how to establish a relationship with people except through money, which gives him control. This became obvious during a conversation with Timothy Good at the conference; before my lecture at Covent Gardens. Jeffery explained to Good his interest in the subject. He said he had approached Hynek as the one man he regarded as the primary authority but, he said, "no sooner was he under my...I mean no sooner was he in Arizona, that he discovered he had an advanced form of cancer."

An interesting slip of the tongue. "Under my..." What? My control? My influence?

Susan Kaye left Jeffery after 10 years of marriage, taking her two daughters with her. She is intelligent and vivacious and seems lost in a personal spiritual upheaval.'

Returning from Phoenix. Monday 15 December 1986.

'Jeffery Kaye's team, headed  up by Tina, has succeeded in pulling off their conference in Scottsdale, quite an event. The conference took place at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, attended by fashionably dressed men and women, adorned by large blow-ups of Billy Meier's fake saucers and punctuated by media types and the occasional Navajo artist. Jeffery's newest girlfriend came over in a pastel dress...'

My comments on the above

1. Based on Vallee's account, it would appear that the sequence of events went as follows:

1. Tina Choate meets Ed Slade.
2. Slade tells Choate about captured UFOs and occupants.
3. Slade knew Glazer.
4. Glazer was Kaye's US financial manager.
5. Choate meets Kaye.
6. Kaye becomes interested.
7. Choate introduces Kaye to Hynek.

2. Tina was Tina Choate. Brian was Brian Myers. See this following newspaper article for an aside.

A second source

I checked a second recent source of information, namely Mark O'Connell's 2017 book, 'The Close Encounters Man.' (Harper Collins; New York.) O'Connell's opening piece about Hynek's move was:

'"Chicago ...is a hotbed of inertia" Hynek said to a Chicago Tribune reporter, in August 1984, to explain his and Mimi's move to Paradise valley, an affluent suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.' (p.332.)

Image courtesy of Amazon Books

'The Hyneks were living in, and operating CUFOS out of, a "spectacular hacienda in the sun" provided by a wealthy British benefactor named Geoffrey Kaye. The generous sponsor, whom Hynek had met through gold-mining entrepreneurs Tina Choate and Brian Myers, was ready to fund "a UFO research center without rival in the world,' and Hynek couldn't resist the lure.' (p.332.)

'The new center in Arizona would also supplant the amateur UFO groups that had made such a poor show of things with the Walton case.' (p.333.)

So, the above are the reasons cited by O'Connell, for Hynek's move from Chicago. However, by the end of 1985 in the International UFO Reporter, Hynek wrote "I am completely dissociated (and I mean completely) from the Phoenix operation...My connection with the International Center for UFO Research is null and void." (p.334.)

O'Connell quotes Brian Myers as saying "Geoffrey Kaye's funding never really dropped out. It was there," explained Myers. "It was only at the end, when Allen was getting ill...that Geoffrey's concern was 'Well, you know, how much further do I go with this, because Allen is obviously on the way out.' (p.336.)

'The true reason for the collapse in Arizona remains murky, with Vallee's version of events often clashing with that of Myers and Choate." (p.337.)

My comment on the above

Note that while Vallee refers to Jeffery Kaye, O'Connell refers to Geoffrey Kaye.