First off, I know that ~/ is the home directory. CDing to ~ or ~/ takes me to the home directory.
However, cd ~X takes me to a special place, where X seems to be anything.
In bash, if I hit "cd ~" and hit tab, it shows a bunch of possible ~X options like ~mail and ~postgres and ~ssh. Going to those folders and doing a pwd shows me that these folders are not in the home directory; they're all over the place.
They are not aliases. I've checked.
They're not env. variables, or else they'd require a $.
What is setting these links, and where can I find where these are being set?