Emily Blunt in a scene from Steven Spielberg’s latest movie “Disclosure Day” / Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Master of science fiction Steven Spielberg returns to the world of extraterrestrials with “Disclosure Day,” his fourth film centered on alien encounters.

Nearly five decades after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and more than 20 years after “War of the Worlds” (2005), the veteran filmmaker attempts to combine the sense of wonder that defined his earlier works with the tension of a modern political thriller.

The story expands on themes explored in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) and “War of the Worlds.” Unlike those films, however, “Disclosure Day” focuses less on the aliens themselves and more on humanity’s response to them.

At the center of the story is Wardex, a secretive military organization that has hidden evidence of extraterrestrial life for decades while conducting controversial experiments on alien visitors.