The noise inside the RCA Dome Monday night at Indianapolis was so loud it was unnatural, and that's precisely what quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and one Steelers official claim it was.

Roethlisberger yesterday charged that the noise was artificially "pumped up" so the Steelers would have trouble at the line of scrimmage on offense.

Before the game, a Steelers official, who asked not to be identified, pointed out many microphones attached atop poles and stationed around the lower perimeter of the stadium. He said he believed they were used to capture the crowd noise and then filter it through the public address system to blast it louder when the Steelers were at the line of scrimmage on offense.

After the Steelers' 26-7 loss to the Colts, coach Bill Cowher and many of his players cited the din inside the dome as a disruption to their offense and a possible cause for the five false start penalties against their offensive line.

"It was louder than any rock concert I've ever been to," Roethlisberger said yesterday.

NFL rules prohibit home teams from artificially creating noise once the opposing offense breaks the huddle. That means, under normal circumstances, the music that blares through the P.A. system must be cut off.

But the NFL no longer tries to inhibit crowd noise as it did a decade ago, an attempt that ended in abject failure. Does electronically enhanced crowd noise qualify as violating NFL rules?

The league said it is satisfied the Colts have done nothing wrong.

"We're not looking into any possible violation by the Colts of our policy on club-controlled stadium sound," an NFL spokesman said yesterday.

ESPN's Ed Werder also reported that the Colts pumped up the volume at the RCA Dome. The Colts issued a statement denying the charge.

"The Colts categorically deny the baseless report that the club somehow 'piped in' or otherwise artificially enhanced the crowd noise at the RCA Dome during the Colts' game against the Steelers on Monday night or, for that matter, at any other time."

Yesterday, Colts spokesman Craig Kelley declined to address the issue of why there were so many microphones atop poles situated around the RCA Dome.

"We stick by our statement and we're moving on," Kelley said. "Too much has been made that never existed. People can draw their own conclusion, and the burden of proof is not on us. We're clean as far as the league office is concerned."