diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index b5a0c47eff0..d1252ba96c1 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -240,6 +240,9 @@ Bug Fixes
 * GITHUB#12072: Fix exponential runtime for nested BooleanQuery#rewrite when a
   BooleanClause is non-scoring. (Ben Trent)
 
+* GITHUB#12088: WeightedSpanTermExtractor should not throw UnsupportedOperationException
+  when it encounters a FieldExistsQuery. (Alan Woodward)
+
 Optimizations
 ---------------------
 * GITHUB#11738: Optimize MultiTermQueryConstantScoreWrapper when a term is present that matches all
diff --git a/lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/WeightedSpanTermExtractor.java b/lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/WeightedSpanTermExtractor.java
index b0c7d9c6ab4..9fd09f0eb4d 100644
--- a/lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/WeightedSpanTermExtractor.java
+++ b/lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/WeightedSpanTermExtractor.java
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ import org.apache.lucene.search.BooleanQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.BoostQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.ConstantScoreQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.DisjunctionMaxQuery;
+import org.apache.lucene.search.FieldExistsQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.IndexSearcher;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.MatchAllDocsQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.MultiPhraseQuery;
@@ -232,6 +233,8 @@ public class WeightedSpanTermExtractor {
       }
     } else if (query instanceof MatchAllDocsQuery) {
       // nothing
+    } else if (query instanceof FieldExistsQuery) {
+      // nothing
     } else if (query instanceof FunctionScoreQuery) {
       extract(((FunctionScoreQuery) query).getWrappedQuery(), boost, terms);
     } else if (isQueryUnsupported(query.getClass())) {
diff --git a/lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/TestHighlighter.java b/lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/TestHighlighter.java
index b8bd645935e..299a8e850bc 100644
--- a/lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/TestHighlighter.java
+++ b/lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/highlight/TestHighlighter.java
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@ import org.apache.lucene.search.BooleanClause.Occur;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.BooleanQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.ConstantScoreQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.DoubleValuesSource;
+import org.apache.lucene.search.FieldExistsQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.FuzzyQuery;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.IndexSearcher;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.MultiPhraseQuery;
@@ -1424,6 +1425,17 @@ public class TestHighlighter extends BaseTokenStreamTestCase implements Formatte
         "foo"); // field "foo"
   }
 
+  public void testFieldExistsQuery() throws IOException {
+    Query q =
+        new BooleanQuery.Builder()
+            .add(new TermQuery(new Term("field", "term")), Occur.MUST)
+            .add(new FieldExistsQuery("field"), Occur.MUST)
+            .build();
+
+    WeightedSpanTermExtractor extractor = new WeightedSpanTermExtractor();
+    extractor.getWeightedSpanTerms(q, 1, new CannedTokenStream(new Token("term", 0, 4)), "field");
+  }
+
   public void testGetBestSingleFragmentWithWeights() throws Exception {
 
     TestHighlightRunner helper =