Correction

Earlier I said Bert and Ernie were the highest energy IceCube events. It seems that the analysis had a few surprises. The "burn sample" (a set of data you try to tune your analysis on and develop the selection criteria) turns out to have contained Big Bird, with maybe as much energy as Bert and Ernie together. If this was the only high energy case we'd be worried--you don't want to "draw the target around the bullet hole"--but since there are others outside the burn sample it is probably OK. There'll be arguments, though. (In fact a recent evaluation complained that the collaboration was too slow to release results, due to what insiders think of as interminable arguments(*).)

The results are preliminary, and unreleased, so I'm protected from making the obvious (and probably foolish, given the poor statistics) comments about the energy distribution.

(*)Reporters want the story this minute, never mind how accurate. Scientists want it accurate, and if there's no competitor they can take a long time refining the analysis--to the despair of grad students who want to graduate.

UPDATE: Actually Bert and Ernie were from the 2011 season, and Big Bird from the burn sample for the 2012 season.