An unknown virus was isolated from a mosquito pool collected in Jakarta during routine surveillance in 1979. Analysis of the sample using the Illumina platform resulted in the identification of a Newcastle disease virus (NDV) isolate. The sequence of the isolate indicated that it is an ancestral lineage of class II, genotype XIII. The source of the isolate is unusual, as newcastle disease virus is not believed to be vector-borne, although this mosquito pool was processed in a laboratory also handling samples for avian influenza surveillance and it is possible that this resulted in cross-contamination. This NDV isolate is still ancestral to most extant genotype XIII strains and provides a useful insight into historic NDV evolution.