Brown couldn't have been lying. He was invited by the government of France to conduct the experiments in full vacuum, they even built the largest ever vacuum chamber for this purpose.
Those reports were made by the French government, not by Brown.
The reports, written in French, clearly describe the very successful torsion experiments in full vacuum.
Really we need some further experimentation to know for sure, but unless you can explain why the below report is fundamentally flawed, believing Brown's report over any other report is just blind faith. Dismissing experimental evidence just because it doesn't agree with what you've already decided is illogical.
Nothing of the sort.
It could be that in vacuum one needs to use a higher voltage, coupled with a better kind of dielectric, to start the torsion.
R. Talley, mythbusters, blazelabs simply do not have the experience in the field that Brown had. They used the SAME voltage and dielectrics which they utilized in the atmosphere, and then claimed failure.
In the reports, we can clearly see that a higher voltage is needed at first in vacuum to develop torsion/rotation.
The experiments done after Brown did not meet the high standards set by him (voltage, dielectric).
Moreover, there are daily/seasonal variations in the ether drift, a fact clearly observed and documented by Brown.
Here are two videos with experiments done in vacuum, and they do work.
(vacuum test performed by Gravitec, increasing the voltage from 15kv to 18 kv, clear movement/thrust of the capacitor can be seen; near the end the power is switched off, and then turned on again, and we can the visible thrust of the capacitor for a second time)
(torsion/rotation seen clearly)
Tests results :
At the atmospherical pressure, we can observe a thrust in the plan of rotation and directly applied on the asymmetrical capacitors when the voltage is increased from 0 to +45 KV. This produces a torque on the apparatus. When the voltage is back down to 0 V, the device retrieves its initial position.
At the pressure of 1.72 x 10^-6 Torr ( High Vacuum conditions ), the apparatus rotates when the High Voltage is increased from 0 to +45 KV. However the thust observed is weaker than at the atmospherical pressure. When the voltage is back down to 0 V, the device retrieves its initial position.
Conclusions : This experiment is very interesting and shows definitely that a force is produced on asymmetrical capacitors when a High Voltage of +45KV is applied between their armatures in a High Vacuum ( 1.72 x 10^-6 Torr ).
A clear replication of the experiments done in France.
Brown used higher voltages (80 Kv, 110 Kv and 150 Kv).
He observed that the discs sped faster in vacuum, once the correct voltage is applied.