diff --git a/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateIndexNameProcessor.java b/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateIndexNameProcessor.java
index e25891aca4e..311f30513c1 100644
--- a/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateIndexNameProcessor.java
+++ b/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateIndexNameProcessor.java
@@ -63,7 +63,12 @@ public final class DateIndexNameProcessor extends AbstractProcessor {
     @Override
     public void execute(IngestDocument ingestDocument) throws Exception {
         // Date can be specified as a string or long:
-        String date = Objects.toString(ingestDocument.getFieldValue(field, Object.class));
+        Object obj = ingestDocument.getFieldValue(field, Object.class);
+        String date = null;
+        if (obj != null) {
+            // Not use Objects.toString(...) here, because null gets changed to "null" which may confuse some date parsers
+            date = obj.toString();
+        }
 
         DateTime dateTime = null;
         Exception lastException = null;
diff --git a/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessor.java b/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessor.java
index 4dec8f53d3f..100dc3ad031 100644
--- a/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessor.java
+++ b/modules/ingest-common/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessor.java
@@ -30,10 +30,10 @@ import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;
 import org.joda.time.format.ISODateTimeFormat;
 
 import java.util.ArrayList;
-import java.util.IllformedLocaleException;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.function.Function;
 
 public final class DateProcessor extends AbstractProcessor {
@@ -64,7 +64,12 @@ public final class DateProcessor extends AbstractProcessor {
 
     @Override
     public void execute(IngestDocument ingestDocument) {
-        String value = ingestDocument.getFieldValue(field, String.class);
+        Object obj = ingestDocument.getFieldValue(field, Object.class);
+        String value = null;
+        if (obj != null) {
+            // Not use Objects.toString(...) here, because null gets changed to "null" which may confuse some date parsers
+            value = obj.toString();
+        }
 
         DateTime dateTime = null;
         Exception lastException = null;
diff --git a/modules/ingest-common/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessorTests.java b/modules/ingest-common/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessorTests.java
index d92f2e84be1..cc68340ec59 100644
--- a/modules/ingest-common/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessorTests.java
+++ b/modules/ingest-common/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/ingest/common/DateProcessorTests.java
@@ -134,6 +134,12 @@ public class DateProcessorTests extends ESTestCase {
         IngestDocument ingestDocument = RandomDocumentPicks.randomIngestDocument(random(), document);
         dateProcessor.execute(ingestDocument);
         assertThat(ingestDocument.getFieldValue("date_as_date", String.class), equalTo("1970-01-01T00:16:40.500Z"));
+
+        document = new HashMap<>();
+        document.put("date_as_string", 1000500L);
+        ingestDocument = RandomDocumentPicks.randomIngestDocument(random(), document);
+        dateProcessor.execute(ingestDocument);
+        assertThat(ingestDocument.getFieldValue("date_as_date", String.class), equalTo("1970-01-01T00:16:40.500Z"));
     }
 
     public void testUnix() {