DeAngelis is known for his and Steve Novella's investigation into Ed and Lorraine Warren's ghost hunting claims.

[2] According to his close friend Steven Novella, DeAngelis worked for his father as a property manager until his death in 2007.

For several years in his late teens he competed in the local demolition derby, creating a persona called Dr. Demo.

[4] Friend Evan Bernstein remembers that DeAngelis would wear scrubs and rubber gloves to the races, and stand on the top of the car to get the audience riled up.

"[6] As Evan Bernstein tells it, "One night sometime in late 1995, Perry was over [at] Steve's condo, casually flipping through a copy of SI (Skeptical Inquirer).

Because I quickly became the detail and logistic person that made things happen," but he gets the credit for having the original big idea.

"[5] According to the Connecticut Post DeAngelis "if punched in the nose by a ghost, would immediately look for the zipper on the assailant's costume."

DeAngelis states that they wanted to form the Connecticut Skeptical Society because "too few people were 'looking for the zippers'... 'We just felt that it was important that there be somebody right here standing for the vanguard of reason and critical thought'."

DeAngelis sees critical thinking skills as being very important for society, Heaven's Gate might not have happened if the UFO culture weren't so popular.

If you do see a bright light in the nighttime sky, maybe that's a satellite, the space shuttle on the way home, or some other wonderful thing of a terrestrial nature.

[6] One of DeAngelis' favorite investigations was when he and Steven Novella looked into the stories of Ed and Lorraine Warren, on which the movies The Amityville Horror and The Conjuring are based.

"[4] In an article for the Sydney Morning Herald that examined whether supernatural films are really based on true events, that investigation was used as evidence to the contrary.

What we found was a very nice couple, some genuinely sincere people, but absolutely no compelling evidence..."[10] While neither DeAngelis nor Novella thought the Warrens would intentionally cause harm to anyone, they did caution that claims like the Warrens' served to reinforce delusions and confuse the public about legitimate scientific methodology.

As fellow SGU panelist Bob Novella tells it, "In 2005 emails flew back and forth for days as we tried to think of a name for our show.

He sent an email with a final salvo of ideas and embedded in there was “The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.” The Douglas Adams reference resonated with us instantly and we made it so.

"[12] Jay Novella agrees with his brother, Bob, “Perry sent this awesome list of a bunch of different names and “The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe” was on there, and it just seemed like the perfect name.”[13] DeAngelis took his involvement with the podcast so seriously that during the two weeks before his passing, he recorded his Skeptical Quote segment via phone from his hospital room.

He took his involvement seriously and during the two weeks before his passing, he recorded his Skeptical Quote segment via phone from his hospital room.

At the 2010 NECSS live SGU show, Steve Novella said "We still get emails, on a regular basis, from people who are listening back through our archives, and are losing Perry for the first time.

According to Steven Novella and Evan Bernstein, the NESS was asked to speak for the New York Skeptics September 12, 2009.

Even after the organizers decided to move the conference to April, they continue to celebrate the life of DeAngelis each year at NECSS.

He recalls a brief visit from his mother and his sister, but then his kidneys started to shut down and his breathing became labored which caused carbon dioxide to build up in his blood.

He managed to scream at the alien doctors that came to drug him further, and pulled out his feeding tubes, while shouting '"I don't want that!"'.

His family and friends began to visit more as he was later to learn that he was extremely ill and stopped breathing at one point.

Days later he finally stabilized and woke to "find Jocelyn Novella... [there holding] her one-year-old daughter, Julia.

DeAngelis wrote this article to bring attention to this type of delirium and to explain that he now has a new appreciation of the terror of paranoia.

"And then Perry his eyes looked up to the left which I recognize as a neurological sign and then the heart monitor went flat and the team converged".

"[14] In an episode of The SGU recording a few years after DeAngelis' death, Novella said, "So we have two quotes today to close out the show.

And so it's also good to note as we often do that we continue to get emails from people who just found the podcast, are going back through old episodes, like 'hey, who was this Perry guy?

The book also contains a chapter, "Dennis Lee and Free Energy – Perry's Adventure" which uses material which DeAngelis wrote for the NESS in 2001.

[22]During his 2018 interview of Jay Novella for Skeptical Inquirer, Rob Palmer provided one example of the impact of DeAngelis' death on a podcast fan when he told Novella: I was one of those people who, after discovering the podcast in more recent times, went back and listened to the entire catalog from the very beginning.