The 5-minute solar oscillations are thought to be stochastically excited by turbulent convection and intrinsically damped by viscosity. The signature of a stochastic forcing mechanism for the power distribution at fixed frequency is expected to follow a negative exponential distribution. Although for low-angular degree (low-l) modes theory and observation agree well, a slight excess of modes with very high powers are seen in the solar data. It is possible that these events reflect some other excitation mechanism such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. We aim, therefore, to characterize each event of excitation by its signature in power and phase so we can distinguish those events stochastically excited by turbulent motion from those that have, perhaps, been stimulated by an external source.