Boston TV News Anchor Appears to Swallow Fly Live on the Air

A TV news anchor in Boston appeared to swallow a fly live on the air -- but rather than cough up a storm or make a big fuss ... she just downed it and kept on going.

Check out this wild clip that shows Boston 25 News reporter Vanessa Welch leading a newscast late last week when something seemed to fall right into her mouth and down her throat in a flash ... which, of course, happened to be caught on camera.

On its face, it looks to be a bug of some sort -- likely a fly if it was in fact an insect -- but some have suggested it was something else entirely ... maybe an eyelash.

If you look closely ... you'll see that whatever the object is, it's sitting right under her eye socket -- and as she continues to talk ... it quickly makes a descent ... eventually landing in her mouth and disappearing. Vanessa pauses for a moment ... and seems to swallow it.

It all happens really quickly ... and just like that, she's moved on and kept on reporting the news. Talk about professionalism -- lord knows that's not how all journos would handle this.

In fact ... there's a very famous clip of Houston reporter Isiah Carey doing a live shot out in the field way back in the day ... which got interrupted by a bug of some sort that flew straight into his mouth. He ended up stopping the report entirely and dealing with it ... hilariously so.

Vanessa kept it a little more together this time around ... but whatever it was that went in there, it certainly wasn't welcome. Ya also gotta imagine she's annoyed by it ... seeing how she's inside and *should* presumably be able to avoid an airborne invader like this.