diff --git a/atlas-json/src/main/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/Json.scala b/atlas-json/src/main/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/Json.scala
index 416a1b608..6b166df5e 100644
--- a/atlas-json/src/main/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/Json.scala
+++ b/atlas-json/src/main/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/Json.scala
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.json.JsonWriteFeature
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.*
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.module.SimpleModule
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.smile.SmileFactory
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.smile.SmileGenerator
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype.jdk8.Jdk8Module
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype.jsr310.JavaTimeModule
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.scala.DefaultScalaModule
@@ -75,6 +76,7 @@ object Json {
     .builder()
     .enable(StreamReadFeature.AUTO_CLOSE_SOURCE)
     .enable(StreamWriteFeature.AUTO_CLOSE_TARGET)
+    .enable(SmileGenerator.Feature.LENIENT_UTF_ENCODING)
     .build()
 
   private val jsonMapper = newMapper(jsonFactory)
diff --git a/atlas-json/src/test/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/JsonSuite.scala b/atlas-json/src/test/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/JsonSuite.scala
index 81d81efbc..870fd6d2d 100644
--- a/atlas-json/src/test/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/JsonSuite.scala
+++ b/atlas-json/src/test/scala/com/netflix/atlas/json/JsonSuite.scala
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonToken
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ObjectNode
 import munit.FunSuite
 
 import java.time.Instant
@@ -448,6 +449,15 @@ class JsonSuite extends FunSuite {
     assertEquals(json, """{"name":"name","values":[]}""")
   }
 
+  test("unmatched surrogate pairs") {
+    val json = "{\"test\": 1, \"test\uD83D\": 2}"
+    val jsonNode = Json.decode[ObjectNode](json)
+    val smile = Json.smileEncode(jsonNode)
+    val smileNode = Json.smileDecode[ObjectNode](smile)
+    val expected = Json.decode[ObjectNode](json.replace('\uD83D', '\uFFFD'))
+    assertEquals(smileNode, expected)
+  }
+
   test("decode from JsonData") {
     def parse(json: String): List[JsonSuiteSimple] = {
       val node = Json.decode[JsonNode](json)