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We show experimentally that the dynamics of the two polarizations in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers manifests pulsations with extreme events. Our results are substantiated by numerically solving the Spin-Flip Model with realistic parameters. Statistics of peaks of the linear polarized modes intensities on the free running operation shows the appearance of the so called optical rogue waves or optical extreme events. Detection saturation and data filtering to threat statistics in histograms including rogue events is detailed discussed in the comparison between experiment and theory.