San Francisco Chronicle, May 10, 1979

The name Automatic Pilot came from a quote by psychiatrist George Solomon, from his testimony as defense witness at Dan White's trial for killing San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk:

• Solomon said White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings.

Courtroom artist David Newman's website has a drawing of Dr. George Solomon testifying

Also at Dan White's trial, psychiatrist Martin Blinder provided the famous "Twinkie defense."