Helmut Schmidt (21 February 1928 – 18 August 2011) was a German-born physicist and parapsychologist whose experiments on extrasensory perception were widely criticized for machine bias, methodological errors and lack of replication.

[4] Schmidt initially conducted experiments with electronic random event generators of either a flashing red or green light.

Schmidt reported success rates of 1–2% above what would be expected at random over a large number of trials.

Hansel found that necessary precautions were not taken, there was no presence of an observer or second-experimenter in any of the experiments, no counterchecking of the records and no separate machines used for high and low score attempts.

[2]The psychologists Leonard Zusne, Warren H. Jones supported Hansel and also noted: The effect obtained by Schmidt and others is very small, at most a 2% deviation from the 50% chance level.

"[10] The psychologist James Alcock wrote that he found "serious methodological errors" throughout Schmidt's work which rendered his conclusions of psychokinesis untenable.

[11] This included criticism of Schmidt acting both as experimenter and subject and lack of clarification and detail from his reports such as the possibility of optional stopping during the experiments.