A close hearing of history reveals the things world leaders say to one another when they think the microphones are off.

This week the world reeled at the release of footage that captured small talk between US President Barack Obama and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull at the Apec summit in Manila, during which they competed over who loved John Key the most.

They’re not the only world leaders to have chatted away while thinking the microphone was off. Wikipedia collects dozens of microphone gaffes.

New technology developed by SpinoffLabs™, however, combined with a sift through the archives by binders full of interns, has enabled us to detect the words exchanged at major summits in history.

Just last week at the G20 in Turkey the cameras trained in on an apparently spontaneous tete-a-tete between two men with a frosty relationship, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama. But only the Spinoff has been able to rebuild the audio.

When Helen Clark visited President George W Bush at the White House.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan enjoyed a famously warm rapport.

Who can forget Richard Nixon’s game-changing China visit in 1972 and his meeting with Mao Tse-Tung.

And here’s Chairman Mao with our own Rob Muldoon in 1976.

In 1945 there was that historic meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.

And here is a clip from a special dinner hosted by Jesus.

The audio on this footage is several thousand years old but experts are confident this is the exchange of the stones.

God knows who was mowing the lawn.