diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapper.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapper.java
index 7059345174959..3cc02584b12fe 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapper.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapper.java
@@ -399,8 +399,12 @@ protected void parseCreateField(ParseContext context, List<IndexableField> field
 
         double doubleValue = numericValue.doubleValue();
         if (Double.isFinite(doubleValue) == false) {
-            // since we encode to a long, we have no way to carry NaNs and infinities
-            throw new IllegalArgumentException("[scaled_float] only supports finite values, but got [" + doubleValue + "]");
+            if (ignoreMalformed.value()) {
+                return;
+            } else {
+                // since we encode to a long, we have no way to carry NaNs and infinities
+                throw new IllegalArgumentException("[scaled_float] only supports finite values, but got [" + doubleValue + "]");
+            }
         }
         long scaledValue = Math.round(doubleValue * fieldType().getScalingFactor());
 
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapperTests.java b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapperTests.java
index c2d0317ea070f..c0650c9c72e5b 100644
--- a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapperTests.java
+++ b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/ScaledFloatFieldMapperTests.java
@@ -31,7 +31,9 @@
 import org.junit.Before;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Collection;
+import java.util.List;
 
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.containsString;
 
@@ -223,10 +225,19 @@ public void testCoerce() throws Exception {
     }
 
     public void testIgnoreMalformed() throws Exception {
+        doTestIgnoreMalformed("a", "For input string: \"a\"");
+
+        List<String> values = Arrays.asList("NaN", "Infinity", "-Infinity");
+        for (String value : values) {
+            doTestIgnoreMalformed(value, "[scaled_float] only supports finite values, but got [" + value + "]");
+        }
+    }
+
+    private void doTestIgnoreMalformed(String value, String exceptionMessageContains) throws Exception {
         String mapping = XContentFactory.jsonBuilder().startObject().startObject("type")
-                .startObject("properties").startObject("field").field("type", "scaled_float")
-                .field("scaling_factor", 10.0).endObject().endObject()
-                .endObject().endObject().string();
+            .startObject("properties").startObject("field").field("type", "scaled_float")
+            .field("scaling_factor", 10.0).endObject().endObject()
+            .endObject().endObject().string();
 
         DocumentMapper mapper = parser.parse("type", new CompressedXContent(mapping));
 
@@ -234,26 +245,26 @@ public void testIgnoreMalformed() throws Exception {
 
         ThrowingRunnable runnable = () -> mapper.parse(SourceToParse.source("test", "type", "1", XContentFactory.jsonBuilder()
                 .startObject()
-                .field("field", "a")
+                .field("field", value)
                 .endObject()
                 .bytes(),
-                XContentType.JSON));
+            XContentType.JSON));
         MapperParsingException e = expectThrows(MapperParsingException.class, runnable);
-        assertThat(e.getCause().getMessage(), containsString("For input string: \"a\""));
+        assertThat(e.getCause().getMessage(), containsString(exceptionMessageContains));
 
         mapping = XContentFactory.jsonBuilder().startObject().startObject("type")
-                .startObject("properties").startObject("field").field("type", "scaled_float")
-                .field("scaling_factor", 10.0).field("ignore_malformed", true).endObject().endObject()
-                .endObject().endObject().string();
+            .startObject("properties").startObject("field").field("type", "scaled_float")
+            .field("scaling_factor", 10.0).field("ignore_malformed", true).endObject().endObject()
+            .endObject().endObject().string();
 
         DocumentMapper mapper2 = parser.parse("type", new CompressedXContent(mapping));
 
         ParsedDocument doc = mapper2.parse(SourceToParse.source("test", "type", "1", XContentFactory.jsonBuilder()
                 .startObject()
-                .field("field", "a")
+                .field("field", value)
                 .endObject()
                 .bytes(),
-                XContentType.JSON));
+            XContentType.JSON));
 
         IndexableField[] fields = doc.rootDoc().getFields("field");
         assertEquals(0, fields.length);