Ralph Blumenthal was a reporter for The New York Times from 1964 to 2009, and has written four books based on investigative crime reporting. He took a buyout from the paper in December 2009 to teach and pursue other writing projects. Most recently he had been on the metro staff and before that served as Southwest Bureau Chief based in Houston. In 2001, Blumenthal was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to research the progressive career and penal reforms of Warden Lewis E. Lawes, "the man who made Sing Sing sing." The book on Warden Lawes, Miracle at Sing Sing, was published by St. Martin’s in June, 2004.

Last year there was a major document leak exposed to the UFO community, the documents contained a transcript of a conversation between Eric Davis and Rear Admiral Thomas Wilson that took place in a car behind the EG&G building in Las Vegas. The documents were originally sent to researcher and author, Grant Cameron at the beginning of 2019.

For more than 45 years, Blumenthal led an extensive and illustrious career at the Times as an arts and culture news reporter (1994-2003), an investigative and crime reporter (1971-1994), a foreign correspondent (Germany, Vietnam, Cambodia, 1968-1971) metro and Westchester correspondent (1964-1968) and a reporter/columnist for The Grand Prairie Daily News Texan in 1963.